


C'est la (petite) vie, c'est la (petite) mort

by captainofthegreenpeas



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I didn't mean for this to be s4 fix fic, Kitchen Sex, Menstrual Sex, Misery, Mollcroft, One Night Stands, Post-Episode: s04e01 The Six Thatchers, Series 4, Sherlock (TV) Season/Series 04 Fix-it, but it is now, yo welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:18:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9380021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthegreenpeas/pseuds/captainofthegreenpeas
Summary: After calling Sherrinford, Mycroft feels adrift.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cocohorse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocohorse/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Yeah, that disturbing (probably emotionally unhealthy) mollcroft fanfic I mentioned before. Damn was this hard to write, but oddly poignant, in its own way. Oh mycroft. You and your deteriorating mental state.  
> For anyone who loves mollcroft, even when fundamentally, at its core, it is …disturbing? idek… just… slightly tilting towards twisted. Your mileage may vary. This is assuming the events in tst are 100% legit and unreliable narrator isn’t coming into play.  
> Basically pain, because I Like to Suffer™

He turned off the call and replaced the phone.

 _Sherrinford cannot fail me_ Mycroft thought. _No. Not with Sherlock’s life, not with Sherlock’s happiness at stake. Not with his_ sanity, _his_ mind _at stake_. He had waited for two hours, two silent hours, to be put through to Sherrinford. _I would have waited all night if I had to. From night to day to night to day to night again, I would have waited_.

With John heartbroken, Sherlock’s path back to the needle was clear; and failing his vow was a good push down that path. _How long must I live like this?_ The only way to keep Sherlock off drugs was with cases and cases brought dangers of their own. _When did I last go to sleep without fearing for Sherlock?_

Even a humble secretary could kill. He must take care not to risk paranoia over that. His mind was the only thing saving him from oblivion, he had always known that. If insanity consumed him, he would be worse than useless. If the day ever came when his mind decayed- by Alzheimer’s, or by dementia, whatever- enough to be useless, he knew what to do. Book the next flight to Switzerland (first class, with champagne, naturally- a final flight should be done with some style, was that not so?) and have himself quietly put down in a little clinic.

 _There were times I thought Sherlock was going to die. But now is not that time. He can’t. I just need to… keep going. Even if he does die, my duty doesn’t end. I don’t have the luxury of the option of self-destruction. There is still the government, the country, 60 million people… and my parents. If Sherlock dies, the only two people left that I love will have lost their boy. I will have to be strong, for them. Even if as their last son._ I am _the British government,_ Mycroft thought sadly. _But I can’t stop the flight of a bullet, even when the gun is pointed at my own little brother. And all the power in the world couldn’t stop that._

The third time was no different from the first.

 _I told him caring was not an advantage. I warned him and warned him. He never learned._ _Not even Redbeard was enough to make him learn._

Mycroft allowed himself one single, desperate, keening sob against the kitchen counter before resuming his trademark posture and pinning his composure back on.

_That never happened. Never._

“Mycroft?”

He froze.

_She didn’t see that. She didn’t. No-one must ever see._

“Doctor Hooper.” Just saying the words with authority made him feel himself again.

“You asked to see me. About… about… Mrs Watson. About what I- we- do now.”

He turned to face her.

“Of course.” He donned his professional smile. It was pointless. He knew she could see straight through it. _Perhaps she can see even further than I thought. Perhaps she knows just how hollow I am underneath it all_.

To distract himself from- well, everything- he turned his mind to deduction. He remembered letting her into the house a few hours before and telling her to make herself at h- at ease. _She came at once,_ he thought. _Her shift hours have changed, but her body clock has not._ _You could tell both of those things from the fact that she got the summons at the time that she did; and yet failed to remove the pyjamas she was wearing at the time. Her hair is tousled, she put on socks and shoes and a coat before she even realized she wasn’t fully dressed. It could hardly be considered characteristic of Molly Hooper of all people to be wearing pyjamas in front of Mycroft Holmes of all people._ He scanned over her split ends, her chipped nail polish, her chapped mouth, the bags beneath her eyes, the hyper-pigmentation on her neck beneath her coat, every single flaw, every single sign that she was undeniably, unbearably, _human_.

Half aware of his scrutiny Molly scooted onto the kitchen counter, then scooted off when she recalled Mycroft’s strict observance of etiquette. (Ladies don’t sit on tables.) But he had just crossed the line past which he didn’t care.

“I don’t know what to do.” Her voice had shrunk to the ghost of a mouse. “I know I need to- to take care of R-rosie; and watch out for John and Sh-Sherlock, but- oh God, Mary- my friend, my, my, my friend” her voice cracked and instinctively she turned her face away, biting her lip. Slowly, her face tipped back. She was looking at him with something between curiosity and fear.

Somehow, at some point, in the half-light between night and day and real and unreal, her arms were around his neck and his mouth on hers. Like a fish twisting its way through a net, his fingers were winding through her hair. Someone; and it must be him because who else was controlling these hands, was unbuttoning her coat and hanging it calmly on the hook on the back of the kitchen door. It was only when he felt the chill of the kitchen creep up his arms that he realized his own jacket had gone and the warmth sliding up to his elbows were her hands. Mycroft was present; and yet absent at the same time. Both participant and witness to his own shame. Watching his own actions from the sidelines and yet disconnected and unable to do more than watch. Her leg shifted slightly between his own. He caught it and hooked it around his waist, balancing her at her back before moving down for the other one. He felt her break off the lock of their kiss as she clung to him, hair brushing into his eyes from above, her legs tightening around him, desperate not to let go, not to fall. There was a jolt as her hip connected with the kitchen counter and then settled on top of it. Molly kicked off her shoes and he heard them thud in the distance. Somewhere her socks peeled off as well, when the nubs of her toes pressed into his legs through his trousers.

 _Fish_. Her clothing was patterned with fish. Every third fish red, the others blue. Uniform and dead and cartoonish, unlike the twisting, unpredictable creatures at the aquarium. The only eyes were her own, wide and dark and deep. _Not the eyes of the sharks_ , Mycroft reminded himself. _Not that they were a danger._   _Sinister does not mean deadly, any more than mundane means safe._  

The sight of the blood on her made his heart stop so quickly he registered it only after it passed, along with the knowledge that it was only menstrual. _Sometimes bleeding is not a bad sign_ , he remembered, _because the universe never promised to make sense_. The instant image of the bullet wound on Mary Watson’s chest began to feel less immediate.

By the light from underneath the fridge, goosebumps were rising up her bared legs, her trousers a ridged puddle under the ends of his feet. Her kisses tasted of salt, he noticed, but whether the tears dripping down her face were hers or his own Mycroft could not say. As they pulled him in, her hands trembled and tightened at his shoulders; and Molly nuzzled her face into his chest as if she would burrow her way into his heart.

 _Sweetheart_ , she called him. _Wrong_ , he thought, _all wrong_. He had no heart; and the only thing sweet about him was the sugar that rotted his teeth and turned his blood to cold treacle. He could feel her own heart punching against his own, her breath heaving unsteadily. Molly’s hands went to his neck, to loosen his tie or strangle him, what difference did it make. For one moment he closed his eyes when her lips found the pulse point. _Go on_ he thought _do us all a favour and rip it out_.

Gradually, as each ebb and flow of their movements increased in speed and intensity, her nails twitched and dug into him, as if she were clinging onto a cliff face. Her legs began to jerk and flail, like a fish on a hook, slowly dying. She bucked so suddenly he had to catch and pin her in place to stop her falling off. Her breath began to sputter and stutter and when she finally tipped her head back to cry out, he wasn’t sure if it was ecstasy or despair.

Her hands ran more smoothly but weakly against his back once her limbs slackened and her breath calmed, still encouraging him on. Molly kept trying to tilt his head to look at her but he couldn’t quite manage it. He clutched her to him even so, as if, if he just pushed hard enough, they might forge together and never let go. When finally his own betrayal came, he tried to squash it, to swallow it down, to crush it in his own mouth. He had to accept it, it wasn’t going to go away but still he pressed his mouth closed and tried to slow down his breathing, before he surrendered, head hanging defeated. Silently, he shifted and they broke apart.

The light caught a sheen of sweat on her forehead. She blinked but after a beat picked up the kitchen roll. After ripping off chunks for herself, she passed it to him. He accepted.

The regret at least was not unfamiliar, on his part. It always happened, with every partner no matter the gender. He’d agree, in the raw heat of the rare and heady moment then later feel disappointed in himself for giving in to primal yet entirely optional instincts. Limbic system winning out for once.

“What have we _done_?”

Whether or not Molly intended him to hear that, Mycroft heard it. _Say something. Now._ But saying something required thinking something and in that moment, thinking something required feeling something.

But he felt nothing at all.


	2. c'est ce que c'est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly is out of options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a different writing style because now Molly's headspace is in crisis.   
> If the first half was the lucid dream sequence, this is the cold bucket of reality. which is why the writing is more naturalistic. I appreciate it isn't as dramatic as last chapter. Also, a surprising amount of research was required for this chapter.   
> Note: in Molly's last scene in TST, she is indeed wearing a high-collared shirt. Notably, buttoned up to the top.   
> In addition, Molly references actions that did happen last chapter, but Mycroft did not mention them.   
> That sex scene was more of a sketch than a full painting of every single action.

The paving was rough beneath her knees.

She was its only supplicant. None of the group bustling into Culverton Smith’s lair so much as turned their head, to inch their glance back at her. Good. Their eyes had felt too heavy upon her; and the way Molly saw it, they could not give her relief from their staring quickly enough.

 A storm was stirring in her stomach, which had started when she saw the state of Sherlock for herself, made worse by the hollowness that it had replaced.

 _Weeks. He has_ weeks, _unless_ we _stop him_.   _He went back to the needle; and this time he married her_. _Damn him, if he hasn’t already damned himself._

She had suspected as much, when Sherlock walled himself up alive in Baker Street and deflected her barrage of phone calls, each ring more impassioned and hopeless than the last. (Callously, he made no comment on his obstinate lack of communication when he offhandedly told her to show up, at a very specific location at a very specific time over a fortnight in advance.)

 

But if John’s confirmation made it final, Sherlock’s examination made it urgent. _He has to stop, now. There’s no time to lose. That means getting Mycroft involved._ How _the_ hell _am I going to tell him?_ She had barely held it together talking to John at the front door, promising herself that she just needed to get through today, that tomorrow would be kinder, even though she’d told herself that yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and on and on and not once had she been proved right.

 But _Mycroft_. She couldn’t talk to Mycroft. After what they had done- whatever it was that they had done- not out of love and not out of lust but-

 _Pain relief_ , Molly concluded. The act had been pain relief. Had it even worked? _Well, it cured my cramps_ , she thought hysterically. It wasn’t until after she had covered herself and stumbled home that the hormones masking the pain wore off and new aches set in, at the base of her spine, in the muscles of her legs, in her arms and shoulders. When she peeled off her pyjamas for her shower, burying them at the bottom of her laundry basket like incriminating evidence, she found the bump on her hip from the table, followed the faint path of scratches and finger marks up her legs and waist. Molly tried to remember at what points in that frantic, desperate tumble each blemish was born, but the specifics of that night were fading.

The sensations she could remember better than the chronology. _His tie was red and in the half-light it looked like he was bleeding to death. Scented, but up close, sterile. Like some industrial strength disinfectant. Made him smell like Barts. Like home._ _His hands were cold, but his mouth was warm._ Her days left her too exhausted to dream, which she was grateful for, but in the blink before waking she could still hear that one raw cry of pain, like a cockerel heralding the dawn. Her days were filled with crying; and she hated it.

 

Molly had expected some childcare when she accepted the role of godmother. She lived less than an hour away, John and Mary had long hours and busy jobs, it would be naïve not to anticipate some babysitting to give the new parents time for… anything. She had had the foresight to Google “how to take care of baby” on her phone well in advance. She could not have expected Mary to die and John to withdraw in quick succession, landing maternal responsibilities almost entirely on her. John left his weekends for his daughter, but he had no other friends. Sherlock was out of the question, _especially_ now and Mrs Hudson had been preoccupied with him and wouldn’t host Rosie overnight.

Molly didn’t begrudge Rosie anything, it wasn’t her fault she needed constant attention, but she yearned for John to take Rosie back. One night she had held Rosie in her arms and the infant had pawed at Molly’s breast, clearly expecting to be fed. _Nothing for you there_ Molly had thought sadly. It was cruel beyond measure, to take away two doting parents and leave a child with only a pale shadow of one.

 

 

More than ever, she wanted to go back to Barts fulltime, not just her only two free nights each week. Barts had been her home, more than any one person or place. She had been born in the maternity ward and had always known that she wanted to work there, although at first she thought as a doctor. When she broke her ankle, it was Barts that fixed her. When her father wasted away, St Bartholomew took her under his wing and consoled her. When she needed to learn, Barts taught her. When she needed to weep, the pews of the chapels in Barts received her tears. One day, a sheet in Barts would cover her face and perhaps her successor would silently perform a post-mortem.

(She had already picked out a plot for herself in the nearest churchyard . Book early to avoid disappointment.)

 

Alone and without the solace of her work, she was draining away. Each day she tired just a little bit earlier, her bag was just a little bit heavier, the walk was just a little bit longer, the wailing just a little bit louder.

 

Previously, Molly had turned to her friends for advice and support.

But who to turn to? How? Admit to everything? Try to camouflage Mycroft’s involvement without outright lying? It was the fall over again. _Mycroft was all I had then. Mycroft, who if Greg could be believed was all of Sherlock’s worst qualities_ to the power of ten. _I expected more comfort from Sherlock’s “corpse.”_ It hadn’t turned out so bad. In a few brief moments, quiet but sudden, scattered unevenly across the two years, the curtain was twitched aside and Molly saw a glimpse of Mycroft’s inner workings through a word or a look or just a sigh. _Now I have no-one._

There was no point in seeking advice from a stranger. Molly knew that. John’s new therapist was apparently quite good, Molly had wondered about maybe talking to her about it all. But the answer would be the same. Communication is key to healthy relationships, bluh bluh, talk it out.

 

She hadn’t heard a word from Mycroft since. No clandestine summons. No telephone call. No text. It didn’t take a consulting detective to figure out what that meant. _We’re going to pretend it never happened; and try to forget that it did._

Not that she had been impractical about it. Quite the opposite. The day after, she had trekked down to a clinic to be tested (not John’s, in case of accidental encounters) and procured a morning after pill at the pharmacy, just in case her age and the timing of the encounter was not enough. She had thought about texting him. It would only need to be three words. _Clean not pregnant_. But he neither mentioned it nor asked, so the knowledge was assumed instead.  Her aches resolved themselves undetected by the people around her, as did the bites on her throat and neck, after a few days underneath high-collared shirts and scarves. The need for any explanation would turn into a need to lie.

 

Mycroft was more acquaintance than friend, or at least an acquaintance with moments of... something, but she knew him well enough to be aware that the ring on the hand in her hair was not a married man’s, thank God. _If I had still been with Tom, would this have happened? What would Tom’s comfort look like?_

At least adultery was not hanging over their clouded heads. At least they hurt nobody but themselves. At least there was no infection or conception.  At least she had some time to spend each week with corpses. At least Sherlock only _might_ die and she _might_ only love him forever. At least when Sherlock’s heart broke in front of her that day at John’s front door  ( _God, John, why did you make me do that?_ ) he didn’t smell a rat from the clues painted on her neck that she’d had sex with his brother (could he have figured out it was Mycroft? She didn’t want to know.)

 _Small comforts_ , she told herself each morning. _That’s the order of the day._

The driver was clearly impatient with waiting and came around the side of the ambulance. Molly hastily pulled herself up.

“You can go now,” she told him. “I’ll…” Tube? Taxi? “I’ll just... go.”

She was halfway down the street before she had even decided to walk. There was no use for it. Mycroft had to know just how bad of a state Sherlock was in. _He needs treatment; and treatment as far away from Culverton Smith as possible_. Molly didn’t care if she was being paranoid, that she had no evidence yet that Sherlock wasn’t raving. _I have enough to worry about without wasting any time giving Smith the benefit of the doubt_. _I don’t care if he’s innocent, I don’t want him in the same building as an unconscious Sherlock_.

Her hands twisted together.   _Call him now, get it over with_.

Part of her never wanted to see his face again. Part of her wanted nothing so much as to wrap her arms around him once more and listen to his heart beat into the silence. Molly didn’t know which half to trust.

 _It doesn’t matter. I need to tell him how bad it is. He has to intervene_ now _. I can’t wait for weeks I don’t have._

She pulled her phone out and selected his contact.


	3. c'est merde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many things Mycroft could say. He says none of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to rewrite this chapter because I got the timeline of TLD muddled (easily done) and I thought that the Mycroft-in-221B-living-room scene happened earlier than it did and that Sherlock was more noticeably battered after the struggle over the scalpel (I forgot that he gets the eye thing after Culverton). So originally John was in this scene and Mycroft was incensed because he deduced that John hit Sherlock and was all "you broke your promise from the plane to look after Sherlock" "yah but he had a scalpel in his hand" "I don't care what he was doing!" only more time passed between the morgue scene and the Culverton-bedside scene than I thought, so Mycroft actually knew Sherlock was in hospital and that John restrained him from the news broadcast at least so it would be inconsistent to bring it up later after Sherlock's morgue-injuries were healed.   
> Apologies for the sudden shift in tense, I didn't check it on rewrites. Some sentences work better in past tense, others in present.

Every hospital starts to look the same after a while.

The same patronisingly calming wall paint. Trolleys trundling down fat corridors. The children's wards, distinguished by block primary colours and murals of cartoon animals always smiling in spite of all the miseries their cartoon eyeballs witness.

Still, they aren't so inconvenient if you find yourself stuck there for long periods of time with a job that requires constant communication. There aren't desks to be had, but an abundance of chairs and enough silence to make trapped hours productive. That's been some help to Mycroft, across the years. Sherlock's overdoses have been a blight on their family's past, but they have not derailed Mycroft's other duties. The British people are not served by feelings; and enemies of the state do not take time off.

Mycroft leans just slightly into his umbrella as he walks and as he does so he reflects on how glad he is to have it by his side. His arm feels weightless without it; and he feels strangely protected by it, though it is just an umbrella like any other. The lifts are busy so he elects for the stairs instead. Walking is good for him, goldfish not so much.

Mycroft would rather Sherlock was referred to Barts, his "home from home", but this will have to do. Culverton Smith has been arrested, so the hospital is ostensibly safe. Nevertheless, Mycroft wanted the whole institution on lockdown, effective immediately, with the staff investigated and the management put to the question, interrogated if necessary, but Gregory Lestrade shouted him down. Culverton Smith has motive enough to give up any accomplices; and he is blabbing like he's on the Twilight Zone's production of Jeremy Kyle. The thumbscrews are entirely superfluous. The morgue staff have been temporarily suspended, though very leniently, the morgue's contents and exhumed bodies of victims named so far shipped off to Barts and other New Scotland Yard-affiliated morgues, to uncover evidence of any compliance on the morgue's part with Smith's murders. Molly Hooper is going to be snowed under.

The stupidity of goldfish, usually irritating and now dangerous, makes Mycroft's mood even worse. Couldn't see or wouldn't see. _Stupidity or errant cowardice._ He shuts the door to Sherlock's hospital room with very restrained anger, but enough force to make it uncharacteristic.

"Try not to break the door, Mycroft. Poor thing's had enough abuse from John, or more specifically his fire extinguisher." Sherlock acknowledges Mycroft with a twitch of the pages of his copy of _Woman's Weekly._

"The door had it coming. This entire building was structured to aid malignant access. Razing it to the ground would save time."

"Is that righteous indignation talking?"

Mycroft smiles his unfriendly smile. "No. It's me."

 "So Culverton Smith did whatever he liked and got away with it. Magnussen did whatever he liked and got away with it. Did you feel righteous then?"

"Magnussen and Smith are not comparable-"

"Oh of course, one of them is a powerful sadistic celebrity and the other one is a sadistic powerful celebrity! _Big_ difference." Sherlock returned to reading _Woman's Weekly_. "Just because you're intellectually superior to normal people doesn't make you morally superior. Usually you remember that."

Mycroft's mouth tightened. "There's a D notice on that case for a reason. We're not talking about it."

Sherlock feigned ignorance. "Wait, I'm not allowed to mention Magnussen at all? I thought it was just me shooting him I wasn't supposed to talk about."

"Sherlock!"

His younger brother chuckled behind his magazine. "Good to see you, Mycroft. It's been too long."

"Has it? Would you not prefer me to-how do you phrase it? Oh yes, " _fuck off"_?" The memory rankled. "Does it still make you happy, Sherlock? Humiliating me?"

"God, you're not still mad at me about that, are you? I forgot how touchy you can be." Sherlock put the magazine face down on his chest.

"You forgot a lot of things on your drug-fuelled rampage." Judging that that was as warm a welcome as he could expect, Mycroft drew a chair as close to Sherlock's bedside as possible and sat in it.

"Consider it mental spring-cleaning. I was busy planning everyone's lives a fortnight in advance. Some things had to go."

"And now you can put them back in. Because you are _not_ doing that again." Mycroft's eyes narrowed.

"Planning everyone's lives? That's what you do, or at least you tr-"

"Substance abuse!" Mycroft shouted. "You will _never_ take anything so much as an illicit aspirin ever _again_ ; and this will be the last time I have to tell you that."

Sherlock broke eye contact. "It was worth it. Like you've never gone to extreme lengths to take down an enemy."

"Was it worth what you-" by the time he started speaking Mycroft realised he had to finish his sentence. _I have been speaking far too loosely recently. I need to stop._ "...what you put them all through." _What you put me through._ "You aren't the only one who had to make sacrifices because of your decisions."

"Reichenbach," Sherlock's reply took Mycroft aback. "Always Reichenbach."

"It nearly killed you." _I nearly killed you. John was at your bedside, he was watching over you, but I called him away and he only got back just in time..._

Sherlock read the expression of Mycroft's thoughts on his face- not concealed half as carefully as in public.

"I'll be fine now," he said, reaching out to quickly squeeze Mycroft's hand before the owner of said hand could notice it. "Thanks for the kidney."

"It was the most practical option. There were plenty of offers from your friends. I believe Phillip Anderson offered _both_ of his. But a living relative is the longest-lasting." Mycroft's smile this time was genuine; and worth the wait as always. "You'll need another one in fifteen years. If you ask me _very_ nicely, maybe you can have my second if I die in the meantime."

"How generous of you.I shall think of you every time I pee."

"Still so childish," but Mycroft was still smiling as he took a sip from his leakproof travel mug. Uncouth things, but nobody except Sherlock was watching. "How's your eye? Looks painful, but you can obviously still see."

"Seeing is one thing, observing is another. I can observe well enough to know that's not tea in your flask."

Mycroft scowled.

"Not like you to drink on duty."

"I'm not on duty."

"You're always on duty. You've been on duty my entire life. I'd say you were born on duty, but I wasn't there. Should I ask Mummy?"

"You're the expert on self-medication. Mulled wine is hardly cocaine."

"It's not tomato juice either." Mycroft glared and took another sip with the cadence of "screw you." He nearly coughed on it when a synth drumroll started up, leading into the poppy beats of the _Ghostbusters_ theme tune.

"Oh, that'll be Molly. Pass me my phone, Mycroft. Don't look like that," Sherlock said in reply to the expression of alarm on Mycroft's face. "It's her favourite film."

He picked up the phone and quickly handed it over without looking at the screen. Sherlock clicked it on to speakerphone.

"Not dead yet," Sherlock announced by way of greeting.

"Not funny!" A wail started up in the background. "Oh, God. Hang on. I can't talk long, I just wanted to check, you know, how you're doing."

"Splendidly. Nobody's trying to murder me, except for Mycroft, which means everything's back to normal! Oh, now he's making _that face_ at me. I'd describe it, but words don't do it justice."

"Mycroft's there with you?" Molly spoke hurriedly, but her tone was already guarded. Mycroft helped himself to his travel mug; and this time it was a gulp.

"And as fun-loving as ever," if Sherlock noticed Molly's shift in tone, he gave nothing away. "His _joie de vivre_ never fails to impress."

"Oh," Molly seemed unsure of what to say to that. Mycroft pictured the other end of the line; and wondered if Sherlock was as well. Molly shifting her weight from foot to foot, tilting her head into the phone, changing the position of her hands. The last time they had all three been in one conversation had been that Christmas at Barts morgue. She had clearly forgotten how she was expected to react to Mycroft, what outsiders thought they were, what Sherlock would expect her to know. "Well..umm...that's, uh, that's good. I was worried about your drug-taking, that, that day with the ambulance so I told him how bad a state you were in and he-" she coughed "he promised me he'd find out what pushed you to go so far, I'm not sure if he had any luck, he hasn't told- I mean, we don't _talk_ , um er we never talk but- he searched your flat..."

"He did what?" Sherlock's head snapped back to look at Mycroft who was suddenly fascinated by the contents of his travel mug. "Did he disturb my sock index?"

"I don't know! I'm not interested!Nobody cares about your sock index right now, Sherlock!

" _I_ care." Sherlock mumbled petulantly. "Does nobody trust me to know what I'm doing?"

"Not when you're gambling with our lives!" Molly's voice cracked. "Do you have any idea what it was like those years you were gone?"

"I do." Sherlock's voice was hushed. Mycroft's hand squeezed the mug.

"You could have brought that back _forever_."

"I didn't want to die!" Sherlock's distress flared and he suddenly clicked off the speakerphone to Mycroft's dismay. His ears strained to catch what Molly was saying, his eyes scanned every microexpression in Sherlock's reaction. Defeat. Regret. Confusion. Humility. Acceptance. _Blue. White. Red. Warm. Scream._ He shook his head. _No._

"Okay. Fine.I _promise_." Sherlock hung up.

"You promised...?" But Sherlock only smiled.

"What do you think I promised?"

"Sherlock..."

"It is what it is, Mycroft."

Mycroft narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?" _Too quickly, too quickly._

"Whatever you think I mean."

_Time to leave. Now._

"I don't have time for riddles." He got up and replaced his chair.

"Will you have time on my birthday?"

"No."

"Oh, go on."

"I think a kidney should count as an early birthday present. Take care of it, if you want more birthdays."

"Is there something you want to tell me, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked him as he reached the doorway. He stopped, leaned slightly on his umbrella.

"There are many things I want to say, that I don't. There are many things I don't want to say, that I do. _Wanting_ doesn't come into it." This time, the door closed silently.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note on the kidney tangent: Sherlock said to John he "was malnourished, double kidney failure and had been off [his] tits for weeks" so clearly he must have needed a kidney transplant and (thanks to way too much time spent on the NHS website) living relatives are the best source for one. There would also be a loooong recovery time for Sherlock's awful state at the end of TLD which fortunately gives me an excuse to continue this growing story quite a bit until time runs out and TFP kicks in and then I'll have to stop unless I want to override canon which would get very messy because I disagree with 85% of Mycroft's TFP characterisation and 90% of the plot.  
> On Woman's Weekly: according to the Casebook, Sherlock does actually like to read the gossip columns because "all of life can be found there"


	4. c'est un morceau de gateau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's cake demands to be eaten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, it has been too long! But hopefully this will get finished soon.

 

Molly checked her watch. Traffic permitting, she should be a good five minutes early to the restaurant if she kept to schedule. Nothing like a baby to force you to make use of every minute. She double-checked the holdall. All of the clothes and sheets were neatly washed and dried and folded. Toys packed tidily. Bottles cleaned and ready for the next use. The cot folded up and strapped to the side. Spare nappies and soap and muslin and formula milk in the pockets, in case John had run out.

Rosie was ready to go.

Molly treated herself, within her schedule, to the time to pamper her skin and hair, although she had discovered that her definition of "long bath" had halved since she had started taking care of Rosie. She then picked her dress with care. Molly had long since stopped trying to get Sherlock's attention. _I know he doesn't love me, even though that hasn't stopped me from loving him. I know he never will._ The days of the black dress and warm red lipstick were gone, replaced with a bitter wisdom. At first she chose a brightly coloured patterned dress, to convince herself that her mood was bright too: only to realise it highlighted how pale and tired she looked. It would take a lot more peace of mind for her to look bright again. She chose a more subdued shade. _I will still look my best when I see him,_ she decided. _If only to remind him gently what he's missing._

The day was a little chilly, so a knitted scarf was tucked around the baby's neck and a hat with long tails like rabbit ears cushioned her downy head. Molly did not intend to beat John over the head with how much effort she had put into Rosie's care - she was too much of a people pleaser for that, no matter how hard she tried to kick the habit- but she wanted him to know taking unpaid care of Rosie had been taken seriously.

Molly made a silent prayer of thanks that the weather was otherwise calm as she rolled Rosie off the bus. She had forgotten her umbrella and to turn up at the restaurant with her hair and dress soggy and Rosie damp and miserable might have been enough to make her want to skip the whole thing. She plonked her bags down at the table and waited for John and Sherlock.

Across from her, a woman was talking to her friend, pouring herself a cup of tea as she did so. The sight reminded Molly of the first time she felt that she had touched something in Mycroft.

They had had tea then, as their meeting had taken place at half past four in the afternoon. Molly had thought aloud how, if it weren't for tea, there would be far more alcoholics in the world. The brief flash of emotion on Mycroft's face could be called camaraderie, for want of a better word. It was a look of agreement, amusement, approval, understanding, solidarity, all at once. It was genuine. The difference between Mycroft's real and staged expressions of emotion was a matter of simplicity, she had found. If it was fake, it was one exaggerated emotion. Sarcastic disdain. Condescending surprise. Mycroft's real emotions, however, rose to his stoic face like a simmering saucepan, feelings rising in hundreds of tiny bubbles of expression to the flat surface of the water.

Molly had had a _lot_ of partners over the years; and each one left scar tissue, some deeper and slower to fade than others. Some had cut with rejection, some had stabbed with betrayal, some had broken with unkindness. All had sliced with disappointment. Prince Charming stopped being so charming once you made a king of him. The salt in the wounds were all of the might-have-beens. The unrequited pining for the unattainable. All that love, poured down the drain with the dishwater.

There had been joyless one-night stands too, but never so sober _and_ with such disregard for consequences at the same time. Molly hadn’t had one in years, nor had she used sex as a solution, having learned by experience that offering sex is not a plug to save a sinking relationship.

 _It was good, whatever Mycroft and I had. If we had anything at all. If we did, between us we crashed it._ It had been so hard to define them. Each meeting they had had, her feelings changed. Each moment had puzzled her, or shaken her, or challenged her, or intrigued her, or brought her closer to understanding something she could not even sense until she had found it.  The outside world had fallen away, even Sherlock. Acquaintances were not usually so intense, so personally revealing, so intimate in their mutual vulnerability. Friends were not usually so privately kept, so discreet in revealing details to outsiders, so jealous about preserving the privacy of meetings and keeping interruptions at bay. Confidants were not usually so coded and ambiguous in conversation. Lovers were not usually so separate in everyday life, so erratic in arranging meetings, so independent. There was hardly a precedent she could use to compare them. How many relationships in history have begun with one faking the death of the other’s brother? _We should never have met. In nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand parallel universes, the action of a moment would have turned our paths away from each other. I happened to be stuck in the universe we had a full-on collision._ If you are who you are in the dark, how do you define a relationship with someone who first saw you in the dark? It should have amounted to nothing. But it never could have. _Not after a full-on collision._ Sherlock’s fall had been nothing if not _that_.

 If Mycroft had a soul, it had talked to hers. If Mycroft had a heart, hers had heard it. If Mycroft’s mind could be touched, it had wrapped its arms around her own mind; and warmly, if briefly.

But then he went off to Eastern Europe, into danger, to bring back Sherlock without so much as a text telling her he was going anywhere at all. She only learned of his intervention through Sherlock relating the story to her weeks after they got back. He could have died in the meantime and he never thought to mention that fact to her. Of course, it wasn't as if she had any claim to knowledge of his whereabouts. She wasn't his wife, his girlfriend, his family, his colleague, or even his bank manager. They weren't even Facebook friends. Clearly, Molly was low priority.

Not that it should have mattered, of course. She was spoken for already. She had a fiancé, a wedding calendar, piles of stationery and bridal magazines. She had the man and the future she had always wanted.

 _Tom was my last chance_. _He was calm, he was stable, he was sane. He was nice, but he was also rational. He was as good as I could hope for. If it wasn't going to work out with him, it wasn't going to work out with anyone. The final proof that it was in fact me, not them. Then the meat dagger happened._

Damn it. Molly had dated criminals- Moriarty hadn't even been the first of her boyfriends to walk on the wrong side of the law, although he dwarfed them in comparison- but even she had standards; and meat dagger crossed the goddamn line. Her boyfriends had been amoral, callous, eccentric, unpredictable and even disturbed- but never dim. She would never give her heart to an idiot. She would mother a whole legion of cats before she would endure one day as the wife of a moron.

So the cats it was to be.

After her engagement ended, that was it. She did not reopen her dating site profiles. She did not enable any apps. She was strategically busy on all possible days for double dates. She stopped bothering with bars. If her Mr Right was still out there, he could piss off. He had had plenty of time to find her; and he was too bloody late. He had missed the bus.

She had some vestiges of hope left in her- maybe her One True Love wasn’t ready yet. Maybe she was destined to find love late in life. She chuckled to herself. Imagine that. Molly Hooper, cougar.

Molly wondered how long Mycroft’s shadow would hang over her. Moriarty’s shadow was still there, faintly, if only now to remind her how badly things could have ended. Molly was no ingénue. She had seen so many bodies on her slab. There were women she had autopsied who had been killed by partners less evil than Moriarty. She had tried to make light of her bad luck mentally, joking to herself that each questionable man she met she went further with than the last- first she fell in love with Sherlock, then she dated Moriarty, then she had sex with Mycroft- better stop now before she married Hannibal Lecter and spawned a litter of axe-wielding, ant-frying, puppy-kicking, cackling, red-eyed supervillain children.

But the warnings remained.

John waved at her as he and Sherlock entered the restaurant, who was inexplicably wearing his deerstalker. Molly stretched her smile over her scar tissue; and beckoned them over.

* * *

 

“I put her in the high chair; and there’s a children’s menu if she gets hungry,” Molly said by way of greeting.

“Molly, you’re a star.” John leaned over to kiss Rosie on the forehead. “This is to say thanks for everything you’ve done. You can’t imagine how much help you’ve been, taking care of Rosie all these weeks. I’m seriously in awe.” He passed her a bottle of champagne. She had no-one to share it with, so she thanked him profusely oh you shouldn’t have really it was no trouble I did it because you’re my friend thanks ever so I’ll enjoy it greatly.

Mrs Docherty’s charity raffle needed prizes, after all.

“You’re looking clean, Sherlock,” Molly observed pointedly.

“It’s the hat,” Sherlock retorted dryly. “Nobody will sell drugs to me in this hat.”

Molly saw Greg entering the restaurant over Sherlock’s shoulder and her smile became real. It faltered once she saw him up close. He had had even less sleep than her; and it showed.

“Sorry, hope I’m not too late. Meeting overran.”

“Not at all,” she reassured him, handing over a menu. “We’re just making our choices.” They had decided to order individual cakes rather than have a special birthday cake with candles brought out by the kitchen staff. High or low, Sherlock and fire was a risky combination. Besides, he wasn’t in the mood for especial attention from the staff and other diners. Sherlock was mellowing, but “being serenaded with the Happy Birthday song” was an achievement he had yet to unlock.

“God, look at this menu,” Sherlock remarked as they pored over the scores of choices. Lemon drizzle, Black Forest, red velvet, double chocolate, lemon meringue, Victoria sponge… “Promise never to tell Mycroft about this place or we’ll never get him out of here.”

“Is he coming today?” The look on Greg’s face was akin to a teacher being told he was about to receive a surprise inspection from Ofsted.

“He should, but knowing Mycroft he won’t,” John answered.

“Mycroft rang this morning.” Sherlock continued, in a tone that indicated the call was a substitute for showing up. “He’s got a date. With a person of the female gender.”

Molly hid her face with her menu.

“Who on earth with?” From behind her menu, John and Greg looked both confused and alarmed. John was the more confused of the two, Greg the more alarmed.

“Never mind who, doesn’t anyone want to know how I deduced it?” Sherlock whined.

Molly sighed. “How did you deduce it, Sherlock?”

“His voice was half an octave higher than usual,” Sherlock giggled childishly. “He sounded like he was about to faint. Of course he denied it fiercely, so there’s more evidence. Judging by the number of noes he said, I’d say Lady Smallwood was the female in question.”

“What’s she like then, this Lady Smallcroft? I mean, Smallwood?” Molly quickly covered up her verbal slip.

“She’s the one with the pervy husband who killed himself. Come to think of it, Molly, her luck with men is worse than yours.”

“Sherlock, manners!” John scolded.

“I didn’t mean it rudely!”

“No no, it’s fine. I’ve stopped caring.” That came out a shade more bitterly than Molly intended it to. An awkward silence spurred Molly to try and divert the conversation away from her and man-curse.

“She must be quite someone, then. This Lady Smallwood.”

“She’s not all that bad.” Sherlock remarked, which made Molly raise her eyebrows. “Not bad” was high praise for Sherlock. “Terrible taste in perfume, though.”

Molly didn’t know what to say to that. For a moment, she felt like she was back in the morgue again, with not-her-face woman, but she didn’t know why. She looked to Greg.

“You must be glad when this whole Culverton Smith business is finished.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Greg sighed, but Molly could well believe. Her contentment at going back to the lab had been tainted by the tidal wave of exhumed bodies. So many. Most of them elderly or otherwise very frail, all were so fragile and made small by death. The sheer number was depressing in itself, but they looked so vulnerable. Usually Molly was relieved to autopsy the old, comforted by the knowledge that at least they had enjoyed long life and relative peacefulness. But as murder victims…Molly could see them as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and great aunt and great uncles. Molly’s instinct was to protect them, shelter them, care for them. She could not understand why someone could be so vicious as to lust after hurting them.

Or perhaps she could, by now.

She did her duty, of course. Whatever the soap operatics in her personal life, Molly never neglected her responsibilities at Barts. Caring for Rosie aside, when Barts called, Molly answered. Her dead needed her. She made her heart as silent as the hearts of her stiffs; and absorbed herself in the means and methods of her work.  Unseen and unpraised, Molly worked alone and silent through the day or the night. _Serving others is the greatest joy there is_ , her father would often tell her; and Molly had carved his words into her heart and they had stayed there, no matter how many times it was broken.

_I think Mycroft understood something of what that was like._

The realisation made her tune out of whatever it was John was saying, giving herself over to her thoughts.

“Molly?”

“Huh?” She realised they were all looking at her. Sherlock was frowning.

“So what do you think?” John prompted.

“Umm…. Yeah. I just… I need to… um.. I’ll just be a minute.” Suddenly desperate to get out of there, Molly hurried off to the ladies’. Mentally, she cursed herself. She had it together, yet that one silly little thought had knocked her off kilter.

Molly wasn’t entirely sure why she was crying, whether it was Mycroft or Culverton or Mary or Greg or all of the above, but cry she did. The moment the toilet cubicle door closed she let out a few sobs. Oh god, now she’d gone and done it. If she went back out there any time soon it wouldn’t take Sherlock two seconds to deduce she’d been crying and then she might never hear the end of it. On the other hand, if she took too long, the others might start to worry.

Normally, this being Britain, Molly’s crying would be given cautious space, but the anonymising effect of walls emboldened the occupant of the neighbouring cubicle who tapped delicately on the door.

“You alright in there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just… not good day.”

“Ohhh. You sound pretty roughed up. Do you want me to find a nurse?”

“No, I’m just….”

“Man trouble?”

“Kind of.”

“Okay, well, take care, anyway.”

“Thanks.” Molly unrolled some paper for her eyes. It was abrasive, so it probably only made her look worse, but at least her face was dry. She decided to put herself first; and wait a few minutes more before going back into the world. Since her head had been filled with hard thoughts, she may as well try to make sense of them first.

Today wouldn’t even have been the first time she had been anxious about bumping into Mycroft. In the run up to John’s wedding, she had had sleepless nights at the prospect of having to introduce Mycroft to Tom. Would Mycroft be genuinely polite and courteous or borderline terrifying in his icy formality?

In her hearts, which outcome did she think would be worse?

Mycroft knew she was engaged, she had worn her ring in front of him and even if she hadn’t he would have found out anyway. He never so much as looked at it, never mentioned her engagement, never expressed any interest in her fiancé’s existence. His sentences were always constructed in such a way that it was clear “you” meant “you, singular.”

She wondered if that was arrogance on his part, or spite. That Tom was not worth his time to even acknowledge. That Tom was so insignificant he was completely irrelevant to their… thing.

And Molly had continued to meet with Mycroft, though less frequently, if no less personally. She hadn’t thought Mycroft was an issue, after all they weren’t lovers, were they? How could they be cheating if they didn’t have sex or kiss or hold hands?

But then in the waiting room of her GP’s surgery she had read in a magazine about “emotional affairs” and started to panic. Had she been cheating the whole time? What would Tom call it, if he ever found out?

Not that she needed to worry about that now. She had no idea where Tom was, or what he was doing. They’d broken off contact; and he had left her life. It was for the best. Failures are not happy sights.

Molly wondered if the end of her engagement had changed anything in Mycroft’s eyes. She had never asked. He had never mentioned her engagement ending, either. When she saw Mycroft for the first time with the ring off, it was as if nothing had changed; and her marital status had always been the same.

Well, if Tom had been so irrelevant, then so would Lady Smallwood be. If she saw Mycroft again, she would not deign to mention her name either. See how he liked it. Oh, but he probably wouldn’t even notice.

Eventually, Molly dragged herself out of the bathroom; and ran straight into Greg.

“Greg, I’m so sorry, I was ages, I, I lost track of the time- wasn’t feeling too good-“

“Well, as long as you’re okay. You are okay?” The concern in Greg’s tired eyes was enough to make her want to cry all over again.

“I.. things have been a bit hard, I… had a rough time a while back and it’s kind of… still hanging over me.” _This is what I’ve needed to do,_ Molly realised. _Talk to someone. But with discretion._

“Oh?”

“It’s nothing, I just… I had, um, I hadsexwithamanandIreallyshouldn’thave.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

The second time was easier, now that she had got it out of her system.

“I…well… after Mary, uh, died, I mean killed, well… I…felt so…low; and, I, didn’t know what to do and… I had sex one night because I was lost and he was lost and it was… it wasn’t… wasn’t good.”

The look of concern on Greg’s face sharpened into fear.

“I don’t need the police or anything like that,” she added quickly. “It wasn’t… it was legal, just… I regret it. It made everything worse; and it… it hurts.”

“Was it… was he a stranger? A friend, an ex?”

“It’s… not easy to say. Not anyone you’d really know.” She hoped the last part wasn’t too much of a lie. He held out his arms; and she accepted his hug willingly. She closed her eyes and thought of how comfortingly warm he was.

 “Look Moll… whatever happened, I’d never judge you. You know that, don’t you?” She let go of him and beamed. _I should have gone to Greg after Mary died. If I went to Greg instead of Mycroft, none of this mess would have happened._

“Want to go back and grab some cake?” She nodded; and hoped Sherlock hadn’t snaffled all of the vanilla cheesecake.

* * *

 

The flat was quiet, that night. Molly sat up in bed, her face awash with blue from her laptop, as if she were underwater, her eyes as round as the zeroes on the computer clock that marked the time as midnight. She kept listening for Rosie, but there was nothing to hear.

It had seemed emotionally dangerous to take a trip down memory lane, but Molly judged the risk worth taking, so she binged on John’s blog posts. At a quarter to one, she estimated how many hours of sleep she’d need for work and shut down her laptop, sliding it into the drawer of her bedside table. Despite the light from her laptop making her feel more awake, she quickly fell asleep once darkness blanketed her.  

Molly dreamed she was back home.

The terraced house where she’d grown up was as it had been all those years ago as she sat down to dinner, as if it had never been sold, moved away from and demolished. Her mother sat at her left hand, her father at her right. She wasn’t hungry, but to refuse food felt ungrateful, so she tucked in as if she wanted to. Molly hadn’t seen her parents in years, after all, so she resolved to make the most of them while they were here.

Her father passed a plate of roasted chicken legs. She took one, ever the growing girl. She bit into it; and tasted blood. The raw flesh was soft and slick against her teeth. She dropped it, retching instinctively and rushed for the door, turning over the dinner table in the process. This was wrong, all of it was wrong. Her parents’ calls behind her became screams once she yanked open the front door, but she dared not look back.

The street was gone, the houses were gone, midnight woodland in their place. Molly ran and ran, darting between bushes and dodging briar. Once she risked a glance behind her; and saw that her childhood home was gone too. The light she took for the kitchen window was the glint of a hound’s eye. She forced herself on, pushing her muscles to propel her further and faster, kicking up rocks and dust in the way, flailing at overhanging branches and slamming aside foliage. The faster she ran, the louder the hound yapped. The faster she ran, the steeper the ground until she was puffing uphill. _Stop_ her body cried, _stop now_. But she could not stop. Yield to her body’s wishes; and the hound would have her.

She was slowing; and each step uphill began to give way and slowly, slowly slide down. Molly scrabbled. _Come on, the hound is here_.

There was a scuffling sound behind her as the hound leaped and then she felt the breath crushed out of her as it pinned her to the ground. What Molly took for paws she realised were hands; and human hands, at her head and around her neck. She shook her head fiercely, trying to dislodge the hands.  She could smell Culverton Smith’s pungent hair oil, felt the crooked bite of his dirty teeth sinking into her neck. She shrieked, backhanding him. He fell backwards out of sight, but dragged her with him, flipping her back over again. Pinned, but face up, the man over her was not Culverton, but Mycroft.

Her left hand pulled him close, but her right hand pushed him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, that was a super long chapter! Congrats on ploughing through it ;)


	5. sur le pont

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Smallwood's bridge. Mycroft's crossroads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoever spots the House of Cards reference gets a slice of cake.

The river was as deep and dark as the sky. The lights of the riverboat restaurant upstream became its twisting stars. Mycroft watched, as he so often did, in silence. Unlike Sherlock, he kept the findings of his watches to himself. One hand rested upon the stone base of an ornate lamp.  The sentinel of the bridge, he was ignored by the strolling nightlife passing by. The night was moonless; and stretched on forever.

 

Lady Smallwood had walked on ahead during a lull in their conversation. She often did that, in private. The little quirks that are tucked away by people, like stray hairs, in public, reveal themselves once the gaze is turned. Once she wanted the conversation to return, so would she.

The mantle of the effects of the whisky they had shared had settled upon him, which made his view of the people around him markedly more sympathetic than sober; his manner more frank and open. He was not drunk, not even tipsy, but alert to the alcohol he had consumed.

 

Several passers-by later, Lady Smallwood’s patrol came his way again. She opened a pack of cigarettes and held it out to him.

“Smoking and alcohol? Is there a sudden emergency?” _To compound the ongoing emergencies I am juggling._

Lady Smallwood’s expression did not change at his sardonicism.

“You work for the _PM_. You deserve one.” She pointedly took out one for herself.

“I work for Elizabeth Windsor. Madam Collingridge is simply the conduit through which this happens.”

“Nevertheless, working with _her_ would drive any Prohibitionist to drink; and any asthmatic to the pipe.”

“And I am neither.” Mycroft accepted one.  She brought out her lighter and they bowed their heads reverently to share the flame.

“Speaking of Annaliese Collingridge, she has convinced herself that the Russians are hacking the lottery and that that’s why she never wins.”

“God, how ghastly.” Lady Smallwood took a drag.  “Just out of curiosity, _are_ the Russians hacking the lottery?”

“No, I am, but that’s beside the point. She will not be swayed.”

“In that case, you and I should bulk buy whisky.”

“On behalf of the Civil Service.”

“On behalf of the British nation.”

Mycroft chuckled agreement at that. His amusement was accompanied by a sudden chorus of laughter from further away. A group of students were walking down by the riverside, leaning on each other.

 “Look at them.” Lady Smallwood turned to face the river. The pair watched over the youths making their way towards the bridge. At the front of the group were a gangly youth and his shoulder-height girlfriend, sharing wonky kisses in between sips of the soft fizzy drinks in their spare hands. Behind them a shorter and far more inebriated party-goer was supported merrily by her two plump friends.

 “Tell me about their lives, Mycroft.”

Mycroft obliged.

 “He cut himself shaving. She straightened her hair especially for the occasion. He’s wearing his favourite shirt. He isn’t used to staying out this late. She once broke her arm playing tennis. Those two met in kindergarten. She saved for a month for that dress. She fell out with her roommate. He’s a diabetic. She’s wearing wedged shoes rather than high heels at her mother’s insistence. _Her_ mother’s out of the picture. He wants to be a midwife. Her cousins live in Germany. He eats raw icing. She is allergic to latex. He is at war with his alarm clock. Every morning the alarm clock wins. She has to wake early to avoid the traffic. She stayed up last night to watch the thunderstorm. He writes bad love poetry. She likes it. Between the five of them they study Geography, French, English, Natural Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.” A lump in his throat suddenly came out of nowhere. Mycroft coughed it out.  “They’re happy. They’re normal.”

“Normal,” Lady Smallwood said, without sarcasm. “I wonder what that’s like.”

“I don’t think we can quite imagine,” Mycroft confessed.

“We will never live their lives.” Lady Smallwood agreed. “They will never live ours.”

“For the best.”

“I don’t think they would want our lives,” Lady Smallwood admitted.

“They don’t know what our lives are. They don’t even know that we’re watching them right now.”

“For the best,” Lady Smallwood echoed. She crushed the light from her cigarette with her heel. The group had disappeared from view, but their presence still lingered over Mycroft and Lady Smallwood, like a collective ghost.

“We have to keep them safe.” Mycroft concluded eventually. “Whatever it takes. We have to keep it safe, that…that innocence.”

“Why us?” Lady Smallwood challenged. She knew the answer, she knew that she knew the answer and she knew that Mycroft knew that she knew that she knew the answer. Thus, she was testing him.

(This happens a lot with geniuses communicating.)

 “Because it takes people like us to protect people like them from the other people like us,” Mycroft answered; and she nodded.

“People like us,” she echoed, looking him straight in the eye. “Mycroft. Do you love me?”

He hesitated. Then he told the exact truth.

“I admire you before all women.”

She smiled. She knew what that meant.

“So. Who does love us?”

He thought. She gave him time. He thought of Hugh Smallwood. He thought of Arthur. He thought of Rhoswen. He thought of Harry. He thought of Sherlock.

“Broken people.”

“It took me too long to learn that,” Lady Smallwood confessed. “And I didn’t accept my lesson until Hugh lost the fight. Bless the old perv.”

Mycroft’s mouth tightened. He glanced down at his shoes.

“I accept whatever part I played in that.” She had earned honesty.

“You would have had him own me. You chose to let that happen.” There was no bitterness in her words, only resignation. “No-one will ever own me. I would choose isolation over that.”

“He owned me as well.” _He had_ Redbeard _. Through Redbeard; Sherrinford. I don’t know how, or for how long, but_ he had Redbeard _. He was also occasionally useful, but that was small comfort._

“You did nothing.”

“You knew I would not act.”

“If you had, I might have loved you.” There was no rancour in her admission, only an honest sadness.

“And I you. Loved I not family more.”

She snorted. "Love. You have a strange approach to love."

"Do I?" Mycroft's indifference coupled with defensiveness. "I don't see that it matters."

"It does. If it didn't, you wouldn't have left Irene Adler to be butchered by a terrorist."

His mouth tightened with anger. Mycroft did not tolerate any mention of the Woman by name and had little patience even for implicit reference to her. "She was a traitor; and a criminal. She earned her fate. I was simply the arbiter."

That was true in more ways than one. She had earned Sherlock's rescue, though Mycroft still could not fathom how. Nevertheless, he let her go to America. For Sherlock; and Sherlock only.

"She was hardly the first criminal you ever met, or the worst traitor. You left the other traitors to be shot and the other criminals to be imprisoned. You left her to be _beheaded_."

"So?"

"She _frightened_ you. What she _was_ , frightened you."

"How exactly did she frighten me? Personally? Professionally, I naturally-"

"Sexuality." Lady Smallwood interrupted.

He had a sense of deja vu. He blinked. "Sex doesn't alarm me."

"I didn't say sex, I said _sexuality_. Not the physical mechanics.  _Desire._ Desire frightens you."

Mycroft opened his mouth, then closed it. "What about this time and place makes this conversation look like a good idea?"

"You saying that only proves my point. Mycroft, I know from experience when a man has a problem with desire. And don't get flustery, I'm not talking a _physical_ problem."

"It is too late in the day for me to sit on some stupid couch and talk about my problems," Mycroft snapped. "My private life is not a mess at all."

As they looked into each other’s eyes, they knew the time had come to part. Time; and timeliness, were beginning to press their twin claims. She would not be persuaded; and he would not give ground.

“One last thing,” Lady Smallwood held up a hand to halt him. “On the matter of family… as a friend, Sherrinford may not be as secure as you have hoped. Thought you ought to know.”

 

* * *

The following night, Mycroft sat up in bed, sleepless.  Light hemmed the curtains. His sheets were as tangled and crumpled as if he'd had a lover, but no hush of breath was heard. His only companions were his thoughts; and they were not loving. He sat as he always did when he was alone and defenceless: straight-backed against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs.

 _I learned from Redbeard; and I tried to make Sherlock learn too_. _I learned that only I could keep Sherlock safe; and if Sherlock only had me, I only had myself ._ _Mother and Father could not do it. They had_ failed _, but_ I swore never to fail. Uncle Rudy was right. _"You were built for labour, not for love"._

Whatever shreds of sentimentality were left by the time he was grown he supposed he must have channelled through fiction. Aeneas and Pallas, Benedick and Beatrice, Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, Erec and Enide, Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, Horatio and Hamlet, Prospero and Ariel. All imprisoned in his bookcase or film reels; freed only from their dim cages when he called, his tender and unspoken secrets, forgotten once he returned to the bright world. _Except for Molly._ _She refused to take a cage. She was real._

_I thought that this was the way it would always be. The Unholy Trinity: the British Government, the Ice Man; and Big Brother. That I would never change._ _Why should I, who had no need to change, to improve? I thought I was fine the way I was._ _I thought the Ice Man would walk beside me like a wife, all my days until I died. I never thought I would see the Ice Man dying. I thought he would outlive me._

But he was changing. It was too late to keep denying what was now obvious.  _Sherlock knew before I did_. He could not say quite when it happened. The Christmas that Magnussen was killed, or earlier? Sherlock's return, or earlier? Reichenbach, or earlier? _Did the Woman start it?!_

_I'm not lonely, Sherlock._

_That was a lie. I didn't realise, but it was a lie. It would not have been a lie before, but it was a lie then and it is a lie now._ _I_ am. _I am_ lonely. _And it is too late._ _No man is an island, I know... but I have rowed too far out to sea. I don't think I will ever see the mainland._ This was what he had been left with. _The last time I fully opened my heart, I was drugged at the time and my little brother then stole my laptop._ _It was as farcical as it was humiliating._ That made it easier to send Sherlock off to Eastern Europe, he could not deny.

_I thought it would be safer this way. I built this wall to keep myself safe, to keep out the danger and the pain, but all it did was trap me and now I cannot reach people even when I need to. I cannot step from behind the wall until they are gone; and the space where they should be is barren._

It would be a cliché, a limp saccharine cliché, to call it the Ice Man thawing, or melting. Or the Tin Man yearning for a heart. That was too simple, too trite, too fairytale. _All I want, is to get off this plane. To feel the ground beneath my toes, with no miles of empty air between me and another person. Sherlock. Mummy._

_Molly._

He recalled lines that had always stayed with him. _Your charm so strongly works ‘em, that if you now beheld them, your affections would become tender/ dost thou think so, spirit?/ mine would sir, were I human/ And mine shall._

_I cannot undo this change. I can only try to come out of it on the other side._

Both Mycroft and Sherlock had loved _Henry V_ with equal fervour; and spent what time in their shared childhood they weren’t arguing reciting large chunks of it and other plays at each other. Whoever fluffed the next line first lost the game. (“Do you bite your thumb at me, Sherlock?” “I do bite my thumb, _Mycroft_.” “Do you bite your thumb at _me,_ Sherlock?” “Is the law of my side if I say aye?” “No.” “No, Mycroft. I do not bite my thumb at you, Mycroft, but I bite my thumb, Mycroft.” “Do you quarrel, Sherlock?” “Quarrel, Mycroft? No, Mycroft.”) Sherlock adored "once more unto the breach" and Mycroft liked it well enough, but in his heart of hearts his favourite scene was the ending, when Henry woos Katherine of Valois.

 _He didn't have to, he had already won. She was the spoils of war, but he still would woo her no matter how embarrassingly terrible his French was._ Mycroft didn't learn the lines deliberately, like he had "once more unto the breach", but they had stamped themselves on his memory anyway. _Fair Katherine and most fair/ will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms/ such as will enter at a lady's ear/ and plead his lovesuit to her gentle heart?_ Something about it had struck a chord with Mycroft far more than any of Romeo's whinging. _Perhaps the time has come for me to ask; and not to order._

He picked up his phone. He held it for so long, until he could bring himself to write the text, rereading it over and over again before he sent it, combing each letter, that it went from cold to warm.

He set the phone down. His fingers left it. It buzzed.

He snatched it up again.

_Barts' rooftop._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look at that I'm giving Mycroft Eurus' last minute character development and metaphor YO WELCOME  
> yay for phone as heart metaphors  
> Ps if you want to read more of Mycroft Suffering(TM) there is a little TFP fanfic called The Pelican by some shitty author called captainofthegreenpeas that you might like to give a read if yknow it wont traumatise you or anything. Also provides some background on Arthur and Rhoswen.


	6. je me soucie de vous (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly makes up her mind, but not the bed.

The kettle thundered and rattled as its water boiled. Molly rubbed at her forehead. A cup of tea was just the thing after a long night shift. She nestled her hands in the soft pockets of her dressing gown. Her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. Molly ignored it as she poured her tea. Whoever it was, they could wait. She was in half a mind to ignore it completely, using her phone less than an hour before bed would only disrupt her sleep cycle. After a few sips, however, she picked up her phone. Probably only a text from the phone company about something she didn't care. May as well delete it.

_I would like to see you, if that is agreeable to you. -MH_

Mycroft. Molly let out the breath that she was holding. She typed the first location she could think of and sent it before she could become sane enough to regret it. _Too late now_ , she thought, adding a time in the next text. She couldn't recall her text, it had already been read, so she may as well make it final. _What does he want from me?_ He didn't want to- what they did- to do it again, did he? He couldn't, surely. Maybe he intended to be cold and continue sweeping the elephant in the room under the carpet. It was probably urgent Sherlock-related business that would require no awkward emotional side stepping.

 _But he asked me. He didn't order me. He placed it in my hands._ If it was urgent, if he needed to inform her of something, he wouldn't need to ask her. Oh god, she shouldn't have replied. _What if he does want something..._

Over the years Molly had speculated about quite a lot of men, what it would be like to be in a relationship with them, to be married to them. Sometimes it was fantasising, sometimes it was a mental exercise, other times about men she wasn't interested in it was just idle speculation about their personal lives. Greg, John, Jim. She wouldn't date John if he asked her, so it had been curiosity that set her mind wandering and wondering. Molly almost didn't want to estimate how many hours she had lost to daydreaming about what if she and Sherlock could finally be together. Picturing them walking along the Embankment, silently affectionate, working companionably in the lab at Barts together, snuggling under blankets after dinner, talking about science. Him blazing with energy and innovation, her brighter in his glow. So she forced herself to finally wonder what it would be like to be married to Mycroft Holmes. She had never taken the time to seriously think about it before. Molly stripped her view bare of any rosy hazes or flattering fabrications. She could do herself no favours by deluding herself and if she couldn't bring herself to inject reality into a mental simulation when it came to Mycroft Holmes she had no business ever meeting with him. In her mind, she conjured Mycroft's wife.

She saw a lonely woman.

Small, in a house too big for her. Security details around every corner. Creaking floorboards and closed windows. She saw herself. Sleeping alone in a pristine bed. She saw herself as plus-one, in pearls and hairpins, in a borrowed costume, agonising over awkward official occasions, painstakingly attempting polite conversation and despairing at how far she was missing the mark. What government official would be interested in Mrs Birling's liver abscess? What could she have to contribute? She wasn't any kind of activist. She was absorbed in cooking whenever the news was on. She had read neither treatise or treaty. She voted Labour because her dad did; and then let politics pass her by.

If she stayed home instead, whenever would she see Mycroft that she wouldn't see him as they were now? She saw his parents, trying not to show exasperation. And what would happen with Sherlock? Would she spend time with him when Mycroft was off with mysterious business? She couldn't see that. Would he mock her for worrying? She saw herself worrying. Worrying that the man she married was instinctively isolated, vulnerable and morally ambiguous, unsure what to do about any of those things. She saw herself clambering on top of him in the middle of the night, unable to see his hands on her waist but feeling them there. She saw herself lying in the dark, staring straight upwards and counting their enemies. She forced herself to see.

Tired, stressed, altogether not in the mood to dwell on a man, Molly went to bed and slept on a wet pillow.

* * *

 

Part of her wished she would miss the alarm on her phone, by genuine accident, but that didn't stop her from checking the time every half minute. Finally she could bear it no longer. Molly headed for the roof.

There had been a call, after Sherlock's suicide, to close off the roof, given that they only just realised that you could literally step off the roof and maybe that wasn't a good idea in a building full of suffering people prone to distress and despair. This then caused nigh-strike conditions among the staff who had been using the roof as an ashtray. This then prompted the administration of Barts to realise, wait, their staff were smokers?

Now the roof was staff only, though Molly suspected Mycroft would find his way up anyhow. It was only when her hand connected with the door handle of the roof that she realised she had removed her gloves but not her lab coat. She had spent the afternoon up to her elbows in Mr O'Brien; and her lab coat was so saturated with blood the sleeve was stiff and crinkled, starchy to the touch.

 _This is who I am_ she thought. _Let him see me_. If that unsettled him, so much the better.

To her surprise he was already there, reading something on his phone, looking for all the world as casual as if he were seated at a picnic bench. Molly knew him better; and spotted the telltale stiffness of his shoulders conveying his discomfort. Even after the door closed, he did not look up for a few moments. He finished the page on his phone, then tucked it into his coat. Despite the fact her heart was thundering like a stream train in her chest, there was something comforting in the familiarity of his face, in the angle of his cheekbones and the point of his nose and the way his ears stuck out just a little bit.

"Mycroft," she said, then " _Mycroft_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know I'm terrible. But I only just realised I had a pov switch from Molly to Mycroft halfway through the chapter so I've split this chapter in half. I will not try not to make you all wait so long for the next one!


	7. je me soucie de vous (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old roof, new sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this 4x and I'm still not happy with it. Might tweak it, but this was the best draft.

Mycroft had composed an explanation to Molly, mathematical in its neatness, characteristic in its precision, grounded in a workable reality, based on reasonable, fair premises. It was logical; and Mycroft never said it. He knew with the certainty of a valid conclusion, as they stared at each other, that all along he was never going to say it.

"You've been unhappy," was all he said in the end. "I am sorry."

Molly closed her eyes for a moment.  "My happiness is not your responsibility."

Mycroft frowned. While ambiguous syntax was usually one of his favourite weapons, he was not accustomed to having it used on  _him._

Molly turned away and stared at the spot where Moriarty had shot himself, her eyes fixated as if she herself were painting the blood puddle onto the floor. She chewed at her finger.

"He is dead." Her voice, already small, shrank even further behind her hand. "He is dead, isn't he?"

"Yes." Mycroft could spot her train of thought. "Nobody's coming after you, Molly."

"Are you sure?" 

Mycroft was struck with the cold realisation that nobody had actually taken the time to take Molly aside and inform her of Moriarty's posthumous plans. Sherlock had been thinking about Moriarty, about Mary, about John, always John. Mycroft himself had been thinking about Sherlock. None of them had given Molly's role much thought. 

"He had a network, didn't he? Maybe Sherlock- I don't know- missed a bit. God, I sound like a conspiracy theorist. I even have a tinfoil hat, you know. Meena made me one." She was gabbling, her hands now pressed to the sides of her head. Her laughter was feeble; and humiliated.

"We don't know very much at the moment." Mycroft admitted, hating every word of what truth demanded he say. "As for Moriarty's web...my brother has learned to be thorough."  _Perhaps I myself was too thorough; and shot someone too soon_. 

Molly nodded without looking at him. Without speaking, the two found themselves drawn inexorably to the edge, peering over with just their heads to avoid alarming pedestrians on the ground. 

"I forgot the height of the fall." Mycroft said to everyone and no-one. In her mind's eye, Molly saw herself from above, carrying out the illusion. _We must all have looked so small from up here_. She was sure it was just nostalgia, but part of her missed the Molly who did that. 

"I just-I just want things to go back to the way they were, before-" she tailed off and Mycroft knew the reason for her confusion. When would they go back to, anyway? When had their stars aligned? Before her engagement sent both of them onto different currents? Before Sherlock's relapse? Before Dr Watson's wedding? Would they be selfish enough to wish to return to the most desperate years of Dr Watson's life, simply because that was when they were happiest together?

Before the night when it all went wrong. Unwillingly, he remembered how quietly she left, wincing as she picked up her shoes, wiping her face with the side of her hand and sniffing. 

"I could have at least offered you a cup of tea," he thought aloud; and Molly laughed wetly at that.

"Yes," she replied. "That would have solved everything."   _What could I possibly say? That I didn't mean to? That it doesn't matter? If I believed that I was telling the truth, would she believe me too?_

  "Or perhaps," she began, "I could have asked you... to speak. About what you needed. It might not have been kind, straight after, but... it would have been honest."

Mycroft shivered. His flight response kicked in and his vocal cords seemed to be buffering. "No. No, you can't... I can't do this. I'm sorry, I thought- I thought I could, but I can't- I have- have to go, you, you, I was behind a wall, I was safe, I'm sorry, I had a wall and it was fine, but you can't-" He retreated quickly from the edge.

"I never meant to break any wall," Molly pleaded hurriedly.  "Just- just to stand...behind it. With you. For a while."

"There's nothing behind it," Mycroft argued.

"Then what did I see?" Molly challenged. "That night in your kitchen, what did I see?"

Mycroft scrambled for his explanation, but his mind had already shredded it and he rifled through it for fragments.

"That was a simple case of... the reason being... first, you...I simply..."

"It was an accident, then."

"No, I-" Mycroft realised his defensiveness had answered for him and kicked himself. 

"Then why?" Molly persisted. "Why was it deliberate, then? At point did you decide it was the right time or place? When did you decide I was worth the effort of pinning to the wall?"

"That- that is a personal matter, I couldn't possibly discuss-"

"- discuss it after the fact? It already _happened_ , Mycroft, I was there. It's not beneath your dignity, it's not too _personal_ to do what you can't talk about, but it is beneath your dignity to talk about it with me, at all?"

"Plenty of personal things are not discussed after the fact," Mycroft retorted hastily. "Your engagement, for one example."

"That doesn't count, you weren't invol-" Molly blinked as the piece clinked into place. "Wait a minute. How is my engagement relevant to you?"

"It's not- I- that was hypothetical."

"So your hypothesis is that I should have talked to you about getting engaged?" Molly snorted. "Why would that hypothetically be? Is it your hobby? _Wedding planning?!"_

"I only meant- you became engaged. You accepted the proposal of...whatever his name was-"

"You know his name is Tom," Molly interjected.

" _Tom_ proposed in the park because his tiny brain has no room left for imagination. You were engaged for eight months, one week and four days. He wrote you an uninspired letter to end the engagement in exchange for the return of the equally uninspired engagement ring he gave you that you pretended to like. We never discussed it before, during, or after. Was all that beneath your dignity?"

"I told Greg about it," Molly pointed out. "I told Sherlock. You were the one who avoided the subject. You were the one who didn't go to John's wedding. Sherlock told me. You weren't busy that day. Why weren't you there?"

"I receive many invitations," Mycroft had regained his reserve. "I have to decline most of them solely for time management."

"Most invitations don't involve your brother giving the best man's speech." Molly took a step forward, Mycroft a step back. "Mycroft. Why does it matter to you if I'm married or not?"

"It doesn't. I.. I don't care. Marry any idiot you like. Why stop at just one? Marry four, marry five, marry half of London, _I don't care_!"

Molly blinked, slightly stunned. _Oh no_. 

"Well...okay. Fine. I think we've, um, said everything. That we need to. I'll just.. go, then." She pulled her bloodstained sleeves down over her hands and walked away.

"Molly, please-" The words were out before Mycroft could stop them. "please don't... leave my life."

Molly slowly turned around. 

"What do you mean? I'd still be around, y'know, as Sherlock's friend."

"It... wouldn't be you. Not you, as I know you." 

Molly's face crumpled, her lip folding like an envelope. "You left me. You and Sherlock could've both died out there, but you didn't even warn me. I thought I'd earned at least a goodbye."

For a moment, Mycroft was surprised she'd remembered. That had been a decision more rationalizing than rational, in hindsight. The judgement to avoid vulnerable conversations with her was decided before he thought up any reasoning. 

"You had," he admitted. "But I could not say it."

He felt suddenly very faint. He barely noticed her blood-soaked sleeves as Molly strode towards him in a blur and enveloped him in a hug. For a brief moment he had to quell internal panic and pull his mind out of a tailspin. This was safe. Letting himself sink into the hug, like a warm bath, he rested his arms around her shoulders. There was nothing, except her hands bunched in his coat and her uneven breath smoothing out across him, the warm slip of her hair underneath his arms. When she pulled away, it took him a moment to let her go. His mind seemed to be lagging, clinging on to the warmth and the press. 

"We can't do it again." Her voice was as hoarse as if a year had passed in silence since their conversation ended. "We can't use each other like that. Every time we're in pain. It's only going to hurt more, the more we do it."

"We could do things differently. Take another chance. Try to do... as we did before. I can't play at happy families... but we could get by."

Molly tried one last smile. "Happy Families? I always thought you and I were more Cards Against Humanity."

"Cards? Well, we could try that, too."

Molly looked a little wistful. 

"I've tried everything. It has given me more than enough to bear."

"We could both bear more as one than as two."

"If you asked me ten years ago, I would have said yes. Only I wouldn't have loved you ten years ago and you wouldn't have loved who I was ten years ago. I'm not a cure, Mycroft, I'm a person. I can't mend you, I can't fix you and I won't try. It's not my job. I...I can only hold up for so long..." Molly's shoulders sagged. "I'm sorry. But I've made too many mistakes to make the same ones twice." Molly walked away; and this time nothing would make her turn back. 

 


	8. les femmes dangereuses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The movement of love.

His body is still, it is the violin that is living.

His fingers mould around it, their silence bringing sound to life, the pads of his fingers pressing and the bow caressing the strings. The refrain of Sherlock's new composition is persistent but mellowing with each repetition, becoming sadder and slower, sweeter and yet more wise. Gently, he sweeps the bow off with the last note.

"Lovely," Mycroft says from John's armchair, for he can hardly applaud with the cup and saucer in his hands. Instead, the rain applauds against the window of 221 B's living room. "Your best work yet, in my opinion." He sets his tea upon the table next to him. 

"I was inspired." 

"Oh, a new muse? Should I warn Dr Watson?"

"No, John already knows. Aren't you going to deduce _who_?"

"With _information_ , yes. You've given me none. How am I supposed to infer who inspired this piece if I don't already know their character? You're asking me to deduce _backwards_."

"You know them already."

"Don't taunt me, Sherlock. It's childish." Mycroft's response is so quick it smells of instinct.

"Well? Go on. Be the bossy big brother and tell me who and how it's obvious."

Mycroft's eyes stab. "You cannot mean _her_."

Sherlock sighs. He had almost forgotten his brother's tedious and enduring hatred for the Woman. 

" _New_ muse, you said so yourself."

"That makes it a process of elimination. Where's the challenge in random guesswork, brother mine? Fine, I'll indulge you. Not Dr Watson or his wife, clearly, you've written for them before. That leaves... Rosamund. Mummy, for some reason. Father. Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade. Mrs Hudson. Sergeant Donovan. Anderson."

"Anderson's music would burst your eardrums."

"Lady Smallwood. Angelo. Harry. Any of the homeless network whom I've met. Entertained, little brother, or should I keep going?"

"Not even close, Mycroft. Molly Hooper."

"Doctor Hooper?"

Sherlock gets the reaction he suspected he would. In four syllables, he gets the sharp attention, the feigned surprise, the affected nonchalance, the covered alarm, the hidden fear of discovery. _You knew it was her, you liar. You heard her in the music._

 _"_ I thought it was about time."

"I wouldn't know. Very well, you win. So it was Doctor Hooper all along. _Congratulations_. Don't forget to force a wedding invitation on me, by all means." 

Sherlock jump-flops into his armchair. "How's Lady Smallwood?"

"Carrying on as normal, which is to say always five minutes from strangling the Prime Minister." He catches Sherlock's pointed look. " _No_."

"No what?"

"No to what you're implying. There have been no... improper intimacies." Mycroft's not actually certain, after he's said it, that that was what Sherlock _was_ implying. _My guilt is showing_.

"I'm not sure I believe that," Sherlock's reply is quiet and heavy with the suggestion that he isn't talking about Lady Smallwood anymore.

"I'm sorry, what about this conversation is relevant or necessary?" Mycroft's spines are up. His eyes start to flee around the room. 

"You're not okay, Mycroft." The gentleness in Sherlock's voice alarms Mycroft, but Sherlock is in control of himself now. He is the one that has grown. 

"And? Is that somehow the end of the world?"

"You need to find help."

Mycroft's shoulders sag. "You sought Ella Thompson after that little debacle in the aquarium. The woman who can't even understand John Watson. If I cannot resolve my own concerns, a goldfish needn't bother to even try." He swiftly turns away, to hide his face before it changes with the thought that he wishes that refrain would leave his head. 

"Are you just going to change on your own, then?"

"I don't... I don't need to change. I'm not lonely." Still, he will not turn around.

"I spent a long time trying to be you," Sherlock reflects. "It was like tying my foot into a shoe several sizes too small. It took me almost as long to realise after I stopped trying just how much more damage it's done to you."

" _I'm not damaged_ -" Finally, he is compelled to turn back.

"You can't see it, can you? What's outside your little shell of pride and rigour and isolation, what the goldfish can get with embarrassingly  simple instinct that you can't reach with all the logic in the world."

"You cannot.. surely, you cannot pin your habits on me, that is irresponsible-"

"You abandoned me."

"I went to _university_ , that's hardly-"

"You were there every _single day_ of my life until you went off to university, never replied to my letters and came home a different person." 

"That is a gross exaggeration, just because I matured-"

"You didn't mature, you went _rotten_." _Proud and suspicious and cold and critical and rigid_.  Mycroft had been a petty and self-conscious prude of a big brother, but there'd still been a passion to him, in the way he eagerly devoured knowledge and contested Mummy's authority when it conflicted with his own (otherwise, he ruthlessly enforced it). The Mycroft who used to read _the Adventures of Tom Bombadil_ aloud and looked uncomfortable at the sight even of animal nipples, who was so self-conscious when his voice broke he was silent for weeks on end, who nearly fainted with excitement in the British Museum, was long gone. _You were my parent, more than Mummy ever was, more than Father. I was orphaned in one fell swoop  the day you came back as this icy sophisticate and you're surprised I couldn't handle it?_ He'd been imperious and he was never generous in his praise or affection, but Mycroft was never so cold growing up. 

"I don't see the British government complaining that I'm not 'in touch with my feelings'. I have duties. Duties that require sacrifices. There are people other than you, Sherlock, who need me." _And I can't be what they need me to be either. I can't be what Molly needs. "_ I can hardly wear my heart on my sleeve."

"You can still change, Mycroft. I did."

"I know, you started slaying dragons, giving me a headache in the process."

"You can stop thinking that loving people makes you weak."

"Will you never _listen_ to me? I told you caring is not an advantage. You cannot care and love, I thought that was plain. All lives end, Sherlock. _All_ of them. One day, I will die. You will die. John Watson will die. Molly Hooper will die. No amount of love can ever change that. Credulous people delude themselves with believing in an afterlife, that we'll all see our family, our friends, our pets again in heaven, because reality is unforgiving. You remember the sword of Damocles? At least that sword only _might_ fall. Every time you love, Sherlock, every time, that sword is real and no matter how much happiness you find, that sword will fall. They will choose to leave you, or they will die. If you care for someone, how can you love them, how can you allow them to love you, knowing that one of you will be bereaved? How can you give anything to another, knowing that it will be snatched away again? The more you love, the more suffering you recklessly make at your inevitable demise. If you love, you must not care. If you care, you must not love. "

* * *

 

Logic leaves him with the daylight, however. In his dreams, Molly will not leave him like she left him on the rooftop. In the dark, his shame is gone. Something shifts and he dreams of her. Her lips, her hair, her hands. She whispers his name and buries her face in his neck. He draws patterns along her spine and she guides his hands to where she wants them. Her hair fans out across his pillow and her head is warm in his hands. They move silently and carefully, hands pressed together. Her sighs are contented and peaceful, as if lust is something higher than base.  In the protective igloo of bed covers, they are shielded from the world, he is safe, no one can see. No one will know how closely they pressed together, how much he admitted to wanting her, what they did for each other. In the light, he stays as much the Ice Man as ever. In the dark, he surrenders his soul to her. 

* * *

The moment is like the slam of piano keys. 

"How did you- I never mentioned-"

John can only stare. _What? How?_

"My parents loved silly names. Like Eurus. Or Mycroft. Or Sherlock."

A stream of expletives storms through John's head like a freight train.

"Oh... it's making a... funny face... _I think I'll put a hole in it_."

No, John thinks. No no no no no no no no no no. No. No. 

He jumps at the sound of shattered glass behind him. He doesn't dare turn his head to look, but he can't resist. In the mirror behind him, there is indeed a hole in his face. 

The woman who calls herself Eurus smiles. "Run."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, OK I KNOW I said no TFP stuff, but I have a Plan(TM) as to how that might actually be relevant to Mollcroft's story in this timeline.  
> I'm gonna change most of the plot and be kinda vague about what I keep, because this isn't a TFP AU/fix-it, this is a I-need-to-resolve-this-story-so-they-aren't-just-swimming-in-angst-indefinitely-without-any-sense-of-closure


	9. Les mots interdits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly has had quite enough.

 

_“When I said I’d never leave you-“_

_“And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do too. Where I’m going you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.”_

Rick and Ilsa illuminated Mycroft’s face as he watched the projection, their farewell reflected in his eyes. He knew he ought to be working, but it was nearly four in the morning and he needed something to make him feel alive. His sitting room felt more like an isolation tank. Curtains smothered the windows and the only light was the little torch of the projector. There must be no evidence, no witnesses.  This was too tender for the spotlight of day, it must be cushioned with shadows. The intimacy, the intensity of this human connection formed by light in front of him was almost too much for him to bear. 

“ _Here’s looking at you , kid_ ” Mycroft mouthed.  He did not dare to reach out to touch what he craved, to put his hand and ripple the perfect surface, to disrupt something sacrosanct. 

The blare of his burglar alarm shot through the room. Mycroft gasped and leaped to turn off the projector before any intruder could see what he was watching. It was as if he were taking a shower and a stranger walked straight into the bathroom.

The moment his eyes adjusted to the light of the hallway, the moment was gone. The Ice Man had taken over, with solemn determination. He knew it would be a matter of minutes until his protective unit apprehended the intruder. Mycroft’s senses were already caterwauling as loud as his burglar alarm, spilling information into his ordered instincts as to who and where the burglars were.

John was trying to pull Sherlock away when Mycroft’s estimates on both fronts were proven correct.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice was icy, as if he had not just seen something pure, as if he had never witnessed any hint of love in his entire life. “What do you want _now_?”

“Now not a good time?”

“Sherlock, _not funny_.” John chided. “Mycroft, you wouldn’t mind- turning off-“

“Yes, we’d do it for you- in fact we _were_ doing just that- but it would appear you’ve tinkered with it.“

“Since the last time you broke in, yes. I’m not entirely incapable of learning, _little brother_.”

Usually, Mycroft would roll his eyes and overlook the intrusion and simply try to get the matter sorted as soon as possible in order to retreat back into his shell. But coming on the heels of his last conversation with his brother, he was in no mood to be helpful. Something about the whole business irked him. It felt like a scab was being ripped off, fresh blood oozing through. He felt bare, he felt raw, he hated every bit of it. He wanted to be returned to his protected moment, but that was useless. The moment was gone. His walls were back up.

“Mycroft, this is important. Eurus-“

“It’s always important! The British government is important! The British government calls me on the telephone, and you- how _dare_ you, Sherlock. This is my home and you _violated it_.” Mycroft had no idea where his fury came from, but it needed to breathe.  “Am I not to have a moment’s rest in my own home? After _everything_ I have given you, could you not give me that, at least?“

Sherlock opened his mouth but was cut off.

“Get out.” Mycroft turned on his heel and fled the room.  

* * *

 

Molly had never liked phone calls at the best of times.

She must have had a hundred voicemails backlogged by now; and she always dreaded having to take calls from strangers.

But now? Of all the days? Did it have to be today when everything was going wrong?

It had been a battle just to drag herself out of bed. The moment she woke, she felt more lonely than she had felt since Sherlock's birthday. Her blankets were a false friend, promising comfort that would only be hollow. Memories of her father weighed heavily upon her. She wished so much that he could be here, that she could tell him everything, that he might help her find out where- how- everything had gone so badly wrong. _He would help me, if he could. No-one else ever understood me so well._

 _Except perhaps Mycroft._  

Molly had dropped beakers at work, slipped and scraped her hand on the Tube stairs. Her mind would not sit still and behave; and she managed to accomplish in eight hours what would normally take her two. She thought about calling Meena, but she had been absent-minded enough around her colleagues at work that a proper conversation was an unrealistic hope. 

 _Flavour. I need flavour._ Strong, stinging flavour. Molly had never found ice cream or pizza to be effective comfort food. All that fat just made her feel bloated and oozy. Chilli, lemons, pineapples, grapefruit, they could all act as a kind of defibrillator to the taste buds, shocking her back to solid ground. 

 _Not long now_ , she told herself as she made tea. _Patience, just wait. I will feel better, I just need to make this_. 

Then her phone rang.

_Really? Can't I even be allowed to just have the time to make my bloody tea?_

She picked up her mobile. _Sherlock_.

Molly had half a mind to ignore the call. _He can do without me for one day_. Yet she still found herself answering out of instinct and against her better judgement. _When have I ever used my best judgement around Sherlock Holmes?_

"What is it Sherlock? I've had a bad day, make it quick."

"Molly, I need you to do something for me."

She sighed. "I'm not in the lab right now, Sherlock, it'll have to wait."

"No, it's not- Molly, I need you to say these words. I... I need you to say: 'I love you.'"

Molly's mouth tightened. _No_.

"No- please- Molly, don't hang up-"

"Why are you doing this?" She wished her voice didn't sound so high, so thin, so _hurt_. "Why are you making fun of me?"

"I'm not-"

But the damage has been done. That was the one thing that could have made everything worse. Because it doesn't matter now, nothing Sherlock can say can take back what he had said. He did the one thing she knows she could never deserve, what Molly could never ever bring herself to forgive him for. 

He tore all her carefully mended scars right open.

She wants him to hurt, in that rash red moment, to make him feel something, _something_ of what she's feeling. All restraint is pushed aside because she has been pushed too far.

Molly's love for Sherlock goes out like a light. 

"Fuck you, Sherlock." She bites out. No, no, that's not enough, that's callous but ordinary, it has to mean something.  

" _I fucked your brother!_ " she blurts out. There, she said it, too late now. All the covering, all the avoided eyes, all the deflected questions, no more. _If I must bleed, then he will see it._

"I fucked your brother; and I _screamed_." For good measure, Molly opens the nearest window and hurls her mobile phone out of it as far as she can throw. She did not even take the time to hang up. 

Molly makes it to the screaming of the kettle before she starts to cry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the last bit, I can't remember the exact lines from TFP and I can't find the script, so the inconsistencies at the beginning are unintentional. The big canon divergence on the other hand.... yeah, that's very intentional.   
> In case you were wondering, Sherlock's call in this story is still coming from Sherrinford.


	10. La nuit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly stops caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually make fic in response to creators' decisions, but I think this chapter is partially a rebuttal to Moffat's comment that "The question is: Did Sherlock survive that scene? She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine."   
> With all due respect, Mofftiss, not the Molly I know.

It takes three minutes for the spark to go out. Her anger dissipates, leaving only despair.

All the time, all the effort she made to keep Sherlock from knowing the truth, all the burden she shouldered to keep her pain private, all flushed down the toilet in a moment of rash impulse. After everything Molly did, she’s failed. 

She can’t keep still, inching around the sofa, pacing around the room in a fruitless attempt to release her agitation. By the time she thinks to drink her tea, she realises she’s already drunk it without realising. There’s no point trying to salvage her phone, it’s definitely broken. Now she’ll have to wait to find out just how bad it’s going to be. She still holds out some hope that maybe Sherlock won’t tell John; and if he doesn’t tell John he’s unlikely to tell Mycroft. But what if he does? To date, Mycroft’s never really been truly angry with her. Frustrated, to begin with, once or twice a little disappointed, which almost felt worse than anger. She’s never been foolish enough to think him incapable of rage, but it’s never been directed at her. Either way, she’s sure she’d lose all the trust he ever placed in her, if Sherlock admitted what she’d blurted out. Mycroft does not put his faith in rash people. Molly has no intention of going back on her word, she meant it when she told Mycroft they couldn’t ever be together. But still, it hurts to think that that door might be slammed in her face forever. 

Before she can stop herself, Molly pulls her coat on and grabs her keys, her feet walking her to the pub at the end of the road. Tea clearly isn’t enough. She hasn’t quite accepted what’s happened and she doesn’t want to think about the possibilities.

Molly doesn’t want to think at all. 

After a pint, she feels a little more at ease. Her chair is soft, the pub is warm as pubs always are, and smells of cooking too. A man sits next to her when she buys herself another strong drink. He wears jumpers like John, and smiles at her like Greg. As she sips her drink, she notices his hair curls like Sherlock's. She wonders what it would be like to run her hands through it. Every now and again his eye slips down to her chest; and after a few glances Molly realises her shirt is buttoned up wrong, exposing quite a bit of skin. He reels through some tired old banter and she pays attention only to make sure she laughs or says "yeah" in the right places. After another drink, neither of them seem to care that he's said his lines out of order and she's saying "yeah" when she should laugh, or laughing when she should say "yeah." They lose patience halfway through their next drink, so Molly takes the man home with her. So what if it's a bad decision, she's been making bad decisions ever since she entered Mycroft's house. Besides, he can't disappoint her like all the others if she never expects anything of him. 

She's not sure how long passes between their mumbled exchange of yeses and now, but she's plucking at the seam of her pillowcase, as he labours away behind her. Mycroft's out there, somewhere across the city. Molly wonders what he's doing. She imagines him reading sombrely at his desk, or typing any number of ominous messages on his phone. A hand bunches in her hair, Molly bats it out. Once it's over, the man in her bed feels alien. He begins to fall asleep, but this time Molly doesn't let her partner sleep. Why should he sleep? She got no sleep, the night she was at Mycroft's house. 

Molly prods him awake. "You need to go now."  
"The boyfriend?"  
"The government," she retorts sardonically.   
"Crikey," he slurs with drink and sleep. He asks for her number, she tells him she doesn't have a mobile anymore and he pretends to believe her.  
She doesn't look at him again until he's dressed and walking away down the street and she wonders if this is a sign that a pattern's developing, that sex now will always be hollow. Molly wonders if Mycroft would think the same thing.


	11. Le printemps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft returns from Sherrinford

 

In her heart of hearts, Molly was not surprised to see Mycroft in her kitchen when she returned home from work. She wondered what took him so long. For almost a week, all trace of anything connected to Baker Street had been out of her life. No news from Sherlock, John, Greg- even Mrs. Hudson. She had made no move to reach out to any of them. _I wanted them to come to me. I wanted to be missed._

 

Her left foot took a step towards him before she could stop it.

 

“Leave.” In that moment she knew full well that she was driving in the last nail of the coffin. _Let it end. Why won’t this end? Why won’t his shadow go? Why can’t I push everything aside and forget him?_

 

“I cannot,” he told her; and from the look in his eyes she knew it was not physically leaving that he was referring to. His face was pale, but warmed by the late afternoon sun.  “I need… I need to set things to rights.”

 

“Did… did Sherlock say anything, to you?” There was no point in trying to make the question sound casual.

 

“He didn’t need to. I was there. I heard the phone call.”

 

The room started to sway. Molly quickly took a seat at the counter.

 

“Then why didn’t you stop him?” she blurted out, old tears finally spilling down her cheeks. “Why did you let him humiliate me like that?” For one crazed moment, she wondered if it was his idea.

 

“Believe me, I had no choice.” She could tell just how weary he was from the way he leaned upon his trusty umbrella. “We were compelled.”

 

“Compelled. What, by Moriarty’s ghost?” Molly bites out.

 

“Not far off.” At least Mycroft had not lost all sense of humour.  “An old devotee, in fact.”

 

It took her less than a second to reach the conclusion. “And they knew about me. About what I did.”

 

“Whether Moriarty told her himself or she deduced it, she has not yet revealed. But revenge was her intention.”

 

Molly decided she’d left him standing long enough. “Sit down, Mycroft. You’re tired. ”

 

Mycroft sat opposite her, remarkably gracefully for someone so exhausted.

 

“I must inform you that I am bound by law not to reveal certain details of the matter, but I will tell you all that I can. This devotee, let’s call her…” Mycroft’s eyes ranged across the kitchen; and lighted upon a stack of books. “…Moran,” he finished, picking the name from one of the authors in that stack.

 

“She wanted to avenge Moriarty.”

 

“Yes; and she took her sweet time about it too, which is why Sherlock and I are still here, along with Dr. Watson. You will recall that Sherlock was summoned back to London-“

 

“The missing train.” Molly smiled fondly at the memory. That was a good day.

 

“Indeed, the bomb on the Underground. Sherlock’s return to England allowed Moran to avoid discovery, and keep Moriarty’s posthumous message secret until the time was right. Vivian Norbury was not the only traitor in our ranks. It was their intention to seize Sherlock the moment he was imprisoned on the island of Sherrinford and thus enact their revenge upon him; and through him, me. But of course, I had no intention of letting my brother waste away in prison. The moment my plan to send Sherlock on a suicide mission was leaked to Moran, she knew she had to release the message to lure him back within her grasp, as she had smuggled herself into England. I secured a pardon for Sherlock. Not difficult, given how many powerful men and women were freed by Magnusson’s death, so the conspirators needed to find another way to entrap Sherlock in Sherrinford, behind my back. Moran disguised herself as Culverton Smith’s daughter, with his help, promising him fame for his depravity if he was caught and access to the most vulnerable inmates of Sherrinford if he was not. Of course, she underestimated his sadism and consequently nearly lost her chance at killing Sherlock by her own hand. But, Moran got what she wanted. Sherlock was watching Culverton, I was watching Sherlock. Nobody was watching Sherrinford. My colleagues had their suspicions, but they assumed anything unusual was my doing; and I was distracted besides. I am not in the habit of sharing my strategies unless absolutely necessary, especially with the lower ranks. I missed every warning sign there was. Sherrinford was compromised.”

 

“Tea,” Molly interrupted, as Mycroft buried his head in his hands. “This calls for tea.” She opened the cupboard; and Mycroft rose unprompted to fill the kettle. Even in her lingering anger with Mycroft, she poured a cup for him.

 

“Now you may continue,” Molly told him after Mycroft had taken a long sip.

 

“In her disguises, Moran had interacted with Sherlock and Dr. Watson enough to know their vulnerabilities. She tricked both of them into believing she was Sherlock’s long-lost sister.”

 

Mycroft stared at his feet; and Molly read the pain of deep humiliation in the pursing of his mouth.

 _Sherlock wanted another sibling_ , she realised. _He wanted family. He didn’t want to believe that Mycroft was all he had._

 

“So then she made you… call me?”

 

“Among other things.” Mycroft’s voice was tight. “My pride had been wounded enough for me to be willingly to risk death rather than play her game by her rules, but Dr. Watson reminded me that playing along could buy time; and keep her occupied until either we could be rescued or Sherrinford retaken.”

 

“But I didn’t obey the rules, did I?” Molly’s stomach had sunk so often she thought she might be sick. “I was supposed to say yes, I love you, or no I don’t, not…”

 

“…Not what you actually said, no.  She had accounted for a number of eventualities, each one with a filmed reaction from Moriarty, if you can believe that, but none of them suited your choice of response, it would seem.”

 

“What a waste that he never became a Vine star,” Molly instantly retorted and Mycroft choked on his tea.

 

“If he had, many people might still be alive,” he eventually confessed, once he’d stopped coughing.

“Many of the Sherrinford staff were killed either in the crossfire of our rescue or murdered in her games; and that was damage control. A cult of personality can backfire in curious ways, I have found. Moran could have unleashed a legion of the most dangerous criminals in the British Isles upon an unsuspecting police force, chaos and destruction worthy of the legacy of the Napoleon of crime. Rather than rebuild Moriarty’s criminal network in one fell swoop, taking it to unseen heights of skill and terror, she chose to focus on tormenting three people for personal vengeance. Apologies, four people. Nevertheless, her mistakes do not expiate my own. Her lack of vision kept her capacity for destruction in check, not my own competency, as my superiors have noted. “ Mycroft sighed. “I am no longer, as my brother would say, the British Government.”

 

“They can’t do that!” Molly was outraged. “They won’t last five minutes without you!”

 

“They do not intend to do without me. I am to be retained in an advisory capacity, but I will no longer be able to use the resources of the state to protect my brother.” Mycroft smiled thinly. “My brain ensures that I am still considered an asset.”

 

“You’re more than that,” Molly heard herself say. “You were always more than that.”

 

Mycroft’s smile fell.

 

“Are Sherlock and John… are they okay?”

 

“As well as can be expected. I don’t doubt that Sherlock misses you, but he judged it better for me to explain everything. He declared his love to Dr. Watson shortly before we were rescued.”

 

Molly remembered how much it hurt, that Christmas, to suspect that Sherlock had had eyes for not-her-face woman. Now, she felt only relief. It had been so long and so painful, but now she knew she had finally moved on. The ghost of her feelings for Sherlock was laid to rest.

 

“And John accepted?”

 

“John accepted.”

 

“That’s wonderful,” Molly said; and meant it. “You are happy for them, aren’t you?”

 

“I am _now_. At the time I was more concerned with the broken nose my brother’s beloved had just given me.”

 

“He broke your nose?!”

 

“I think he felt defensive, on your behalf.”

 

“Why, what did he say?”

 

“I believe his exact words were: “make her happy, you bastard, or die trying.””

 

Molly blushed. “Oh.”

She had assumed, given their last meeting, that Mycroft would never mention the possibility of a relationship ever again.

 

Silence fell. Molly drained the last of her tea. She was itching to ask Mycroft about just what exactly this Moran had made them do, but it would have been obvious even to Anderson that Mycroft did not want to talk about the experience.

 

“Thank you for explaining everything to me.”

Mycroft nodded, his face expressionless. He seemed to take that as a cue to leave; and opened the door.

 

“Don’t go,” someone said, and Mycroft looked so startled that she realised that someone was her.

 

For a moment they just stared at each other in confusion. Mycroft’s hands tightened around his umbrella. He frowned, yet Molly did not think she had ever seen anyone frown so hopefully.

 

 “Come home with me.” He said quietly.

 

Molly flinched. 

 

“Not to my house itself.” Mycroft added quickly. “There is a cottage at the end of my garden, where my security unit is normally based. You could rest there, if you wanted.”

 

“You want me to live in your shed.”

 

“It’s a _nice_ shed,” he replied defensively. “You could keep all of your living arrangements as separate from mine as you like, we would not need to share anything. Rest. Take time away from work, if you want.”

 

“And if that’s what I want,” Molly’s voice was so gentle she was surprised that she could hear it at all over the pounding of her heart, “what do you want?”

 

“I want to heal with you.”

 

Molly let out the breath she’d been holding. “What I said before-“

 

“Not as lovers. Just as two people, who help each other.”

 

“And what about the future? Even if we help each other, like you want, we’re both going to die, one day. One of us is going to go first.” _Assuming we don’t leave each other first._

 

“Yes.” Mycroft’s voice was mournful. “And it was very nearly me, who went first. What good did any of it do me, in the end? With a gun in my face, what comfort could I draw from the fact that I had avoided attachment? I saw my life; and it was empty. How could I accept death, knowing how unhappy I left Sherlock? How unhappy I left you?”

 

Tears began to roll down Molly’s face again, but tears of a very different kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I know I didn't explain Redbeard, but this is the best patch-up job I can do.


	12. Epilogue: Prends Mon Coeur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All is peaceful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we're finished. Remember when this was a oneshot? ahahahaha how times change. Thank you, Reader, for taking the time to read this all the way through to the end, especially if you're one of my anonymous subscribers. Do leave a comment if you've enjoyed any part of this story, it really does brighten my day.

Copley's daily life was a mixture of sorrow and joy.

It was the price of serving as hospital chaplain at Barts. He saw showers of tears more frequently than rain, and as he had lived all his life in England, that really was saying something. He had seen loved ones laughing and weeping at the sight of medicine restoring their treasures. He had seen both the old and the young fall asleep in the light of the Lord. It was tiring work, emotionally. And now he was giving up his lunch break.

It was a favour, and just for one day. The girl from the basement- Millie? Mary? He was no good with names- had requested his services. Copley reminded himself that she was a woman not a girl, but something about her seemed small and youthful. Or he was just really old, so everyone looked young to him. They had not exchanged many words over the years. Mostly he saw her when she dropped by his office to collect candles for the sixth chapel. Sometimes he saw her in one of the chapels, sitting alone, deep in thought. He knew better than to disturb her. Copley believed in letting others come to him.

After she made her request, they shared a cup of tea together and discussed what she would prefer. She had been raised a Quaker, she explained, but she was no longer actively practicing. And the gentleman? Devout atheist, came her succinct reply, but a traditionalist. Not an emergency, she explained. The gentleman was not on his deathbed. No, there would be no other attendees. The gentleman’s brother had already made one best man speech in his life. She had no desire that he repeat the challenge.

 

So now the sun scattered gold across the room, warming the prayer cushions, as Copley waited for his guests. At exactly five minutes to the chosen hour, a tall man, immaculately dressed and carrying an umbrella, stepped into the chapel.  He was a sombre gentleman, with a quiet dignity. He had a stern face, and Copley imagined that he could be rather intimidating, yet he felt no fear in his presence. He was like the statues outside the cathedral Copley attended as a boy.  He made solemn pleasantries with Copley, and expressed polite gladness that Copley’s mother’s pet spaniel had recovered from his broken leg, which Copley thanked him for. It was not until the next day that he wondered how on earth he knew that.

 

Once the pleasantries were done, the two waited in silence. Once the minute hand passed the hour, the gentleman’s fingers started to tap against the handle of his umbrella.  At four minutes past, the girl-woman- from the basement burst in, slightly out of breath. The autopsy had taken longer than she had expected. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail, her blouse patterned with sailboats, though she had put on a fresh lab coat. White was traditional, after all. Her intended took a flower from his buttonhole and silently put it behind her ear. She reached out and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.  For a few seconds of stillness, there was only the two of them.

 

“Shall we begin?” Copley asked the couple, and they nodded their assent.

 

He skipped over the mention of witnesses, leaving the emphasis on the sight of God. The gentleman was studying the lady too closely to roll his eyes at the mention of a being he never believed in. The vows were quietly but promptly answered. There were no rings.  “Impractical for our respective vocations,” the gentleman had mentioned among the pleasantries. Copley wanted to inquire further, but then he remembered the D notice on the wedding certificate. The Lord works in mysterious ways, he reminded himself.

 

The gentleman kissed the bride at Copley’s permission, cupping her face with both hands as if to shield the kiss from prying eyes.

 

“I might be late finishing my list tonight,” the new wife whispered.

 

“Dinner will be warm when you come home,” the new husband assured her.  “I myself have matters to attend to.”

They smiled at each other, and Copley realised he himself was smiling. She pulled a box out of her pocket and handed it to Copley.

 

“Thank you for your help. This is from us.”

 

Later that afternoon, Copley opened it to find the exact little marbled notebook he had been admiring in the shop window every day on his way to Barts. How did they- he hadn’t told a soul- oh, never mind. Perhaps the gentleman was a psychic. An excellent one, no wonder he was so well dressed.

 

Anywhere nice for the honeymoon? The British Museum, the gentleman replied. That wasn’t quite what he meant, but Copley simply smiled again and wished them all the best.

 

She hurried back to work, flower still in her hair. He bade farewell, answering a telephone call once he was in the corridor, umbrella swinging like a metronome in his hand. Copley returned to the chapels’ kitchenette for his delayed pasta salad.

 

The afternoon sun beamed over the kitchen counter as a little cloud bloomed over the piping kettle. He found himself thinking on life, and death, and love. All lives end, he knew. All hearts are broken. All hearts have people worth the break.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have said elsewhere on the web that I don't headcanon Mollcroft as ever marrying and especially not having kids, so this ending was a surprise even to me.  
> However, this fic made Mycroft's love/hate relationship with lust a key note of conflict that needed to be resolved, but I couldn't just have him go to a therapist because I don't think that's his style, or would really suit him. I think he's so private it would take years for therapy to make a difference, if said therapist could even figure him out. Yet I wanted mollcroft to have a happy ending here, because all the bittersweet/unhappy endings I tried didn't really work: there was no decisive stop, it just dragged on and I realised there would be no closure without happiness. Mollcroft have left such a stamp on each other's lives there was no way they could forget or move on without years of sorrow and frankly they've been unhappy enough already and I say that as a tragedian! Obviously irl if you have problems TALK THEM OUT PLEASE GET YOURSELF HELP IT SHOULD DEFINITELY WORK FOR YOU, but Mycroft is a one in eight-billion kind of person. So I thought marriage might actually be the resolution for the conflict, because marriage could trick Mycroft's subconscious into accepting his sexual desires by using an institution to formalise or codify them, if you like. Mycroft's life revolves around duty and his relentless drive to carry out what he perceives as his duty so paradoxically presenting love as a duty might make it more appealing out of a sense of familiarity. Please don't come away from this fic feeling that Mollcroft have "fixed" each other. Sometimes quite the opposite has happened. But like post-S4 Johnlock, they're ready to embrace a happier life with open arms and they want to go on their journey side by side.


End file.
